


Clear Through

by Paraxdisepink



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Returns, First Time, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Bondage, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Misunderstandings, Tony Being Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:24:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 48,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What are you expecting here? The guy's been through this massive thing and you, what, want to talk about the time the two of you made out?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nice, rearranged clean and edited copy.

For someone who had lost so much time, Steve didn't know what to do with the time he had now. The others had their lives to go back to—Barton and Romanoff to SHIELD, Stark to bringing in his billions— but for him, the more he wandered around this gaudy, crowded, ugly, perversion of New York, the more he felt trapped in some futuristic Stark Expo illusion with no one to hear him screaming to turn the thing off and let him get back to the people he loved on the other side. There was no going back though, no turning off the constant assault of color and noise, and the more he slowly accepted the fact, the bigger the hole grew inside him. 

There was only so much time Steve could spend drawing. He took to spending hours in the library going through the old newspaper headlines, year after year starting with '45 when his plane had gone down, retracing steps he'd never taken in the stupid hope that filling his head with enough details between then and now would give everything that had changed a sense of logical progression as though he had lived through it all, rather than seeming so sudden. Turns out newspapers were as old-fashioned as he was and that, surprisingly, this "internet" that was the source of all information these days wasn't a Howard Stark invention. 

When it got too much, Steve found it easier to focus on what had stayed the same. They still had movies, pizza, and baseball, even if the Dodgers had moved to L.A. The world still had bullies too, not just the power-mad like Hitler and Loki, but the everyday kind who only cared about what they wanted and making others feel small and who had no respect for what was decent or right. Steve decided to take up the mission of stopping them wherever he could. He might have slept through the rest of the war, but as long as there were people like that no one who cared about what was right really got to stop fighting, and right now he needed a mission he could believe in to feel connected to something that wasn't grief or loss.

He walked the streets and took on bullies of all kinds. He got in the way of the ones who picked on kids scrawny as he used to be. He got involved in a hostage situation inside a bank and protected civilians from a spray of gunfire with his shield. That ended up with Captain America at the center of a "press conference" with lots of fawning over his heroism even though Steve was most proud of the fact that he had been able to render a perfect sketch of the criminals and help the police make an arrest. He chased down criminals on the subway too until he broke some guy's arm trying to stop a purse-snatching. That exploded into what Fury called a "media shitstorm" full of outrage and criticism about vigilante action and superheroes replacing law enforcement. Steve was soundly lectured by the SHIELD higher-ups on what Captain America represented, America itself as a champion of freedom and justice against those who threatened it, not what could be construed as Steve's own brand of "police" brutality and might versus right on the subway. 

After that, the hole inside Steve got bigger. Captain America seemed more than ever like someone else's invention and the modern world didn't care about what was right or what he stood for as a man, only how things looked to a cynical and paranoid nation through the filter of the TV cameras.

Steve thought about what Erskine had wanted, a good man, not a mindless soldier who only fought where he was told. So when the next presidential election rolled around and Steve heard about voter suppression in New Hampshire, he couldn't think of a better cause for Captain America to get involved in. Sure, voting day shenanigans were as old as politics, but that wasn't an excuse to strip people of the rights thousands of men had fought and died to protect, so he put on the suit, got on his bike, and hit the highway.

Twenty minutes out and the portable telephone in his pocket rang, the one SHIELD had issued him in case they needed him. It was more a tiny computer than a telephone and Steve was surprised to see the screen light up with Tony Stark's picture.

"Eyes on the road there, Cap," Stark came on when Steve hit the answer button. He sounded smug. How did he know Steve was on the road? Had he invented himself a crystal ball in that tower of his? Technology in this future had become capable of about everything else. 

"Stark..." Steve didn't know what to say. He wasn't much of a phone person and he hadn't spoken much to Stark since the Battle of New York. They had run into each other a few times at SHIELD where Steve went on a weekly basis to let their doctors monitor the effects of being frozen for nearly seventy years. They concluded he would age normally from now on. 

“SHIELD's got something for us," Stark said. "Fury wants the whole team brought in.”

“So why isn't he calling?” Stark had made clear he wasn't in the habit of taking Fury's orders. 

“Actually, I just wanted to see if the old man could figure out how to use this new-fangled thing we call a smartphone.”

Stark was teasing, Steve could hear it in his voice, but the remark felt too much like a poke at a wound. “Funny,” Steve said dryly. “If no one's in danger I have something to do first.”

“Yeah we've been hearing about that. Taking up a lot of time on the nightly news there, Rogers. Start having too much excitement on the subway and no one cares about clean energy anymore.” A horn honked in back of Steve, and then Stark yelled right behind him. “That's ok though. I've stopped taking being ignored as a personal slight!” He honked again. “Hey Super Soldier, you wanna turn around?”

Steve turned. Stark was right beside him in a sleek silver sports car—a German sports car—the windows rolled down and his sunglasses on. He took them off and leaned back as though Steve were supposed to be impressed. 

“I had JARVIS track you. He does that. Finds things. Even people things. Where we going? SHIELD is _that_ way.” Stark pointed behind him.

Steve had to admit it sometimes held the fascination of a strange art from, the way words tumbled out of Stark's mouth. The guy was so unimaginably intelligent Steve guessed his mouth had trouble keeping up with his brain. 

“There are groups attempting to keep people from voting," Steve had to shout above the noise of the freeway to answer. "If I want to live in a free country, I have no right to sit home and do nothing about it.”

Stark looked around, lifted a finger as if to pinpoint something in mid-air. “Was that a double negative? You realize living in a free country means you have every right to do nothing a-” Steve's glare cut him off. “Fine. Freedom's great. I like freedom. But are you sure this is a good idea, in the iconic suit and all? The fall-out could get messy.”

Steve sped up, called over his shoulder, “I fail to see how any consequences can be worse than letting people like this get away with what they're doing!”

He didn't know what he expected Stark to do—exit the freeway and go home maybe—but he followed. He followed Steve all the way to the first polling station, where masses and masses of people waited in line outside a neighborhood elementary school ready to do their civic duty under a mess of banners and pictures of various local congressional candidates. Steve remembered the last time he had voted at home in 1940, Willkies and Roosevelt, and the big question of whether America would enter the war hanging over everything. 

Tony parked beside him in the parking lot, watching Steve stop nad survey the crowd. It was just a habit from the war, scan the territory, keep a close eye on his squad— Dum Dum, Jones... every one of them from back in the life Steve belonged to that had slipped away in a blink, every one of them dead now.

“Pretty shocking for a 90 year old guy, huh?” Stark hadn't gotten out of his car. “I mean, look what the world has come to while you've been taking a nap—women showing their ankles, out of the kitchen in droves.... Don't soak your Depends yet, Gramps, if this isn't bad enough I'm sure we can find plenty more to shock you with in good enough time."

Maybe Stark thought he was funny, but his jokes hit like a cruel kick to the gut. There was nothing funny about Steve's being stuck here or how he would give anything to go home again. Steve went back to wanting to punch Stark as badly as he had when he first met him, to wanting to punch anything he could even if it was just one heavy bag after another. 

He walked away toward the crowds. The uniform did exactly what it was supposed to; it got the crowd's attention. People turned, stared, whispered to each other. A few pulled out their "smartphones" and took video footage. Letting them, Steve strode right up to the first poll worker he saw turning away three elderly people in a row for not having the exact form of identification she demanded. 

“You know, Ma'am, I've been following this on the news. People without photo ID are still eligble to vote so long as they sign the affidavit swearing they're the person they say they are beforehand. Maybe you're only doing your job, but from where I'm standing turning people away and lying to them looks an awful lot like trying to help one side steal the election."

A few members of the crowd grumbled their agreement. The woman working the polls looked annoyed.

“We're just trying to prevent voter fraud, young man. Some of these people aren't on the lists as registered voters.”

Some of those who had been denied a ballot overheard him and gathered in a small crowd. Steve looked them over. Three senior citizens, two black men, a couple of young women.... He turned back to the poll worker. “Funny how that seems to be happening only with people who look likely to vote Democrat. I really don't see how you can think this is right.”

The woman folded her arms. “I really don't see how some nutjob in a costume has the right to tell me how to run my goddamn voting booth.”

A few people grumbled in agreement to that. They didn't think he was the real Captain America.

“You're holding up the line!” someone yelled.

“More liberal bullshit!” Someone else piped up. “They want to let the same people vote over and over so they can tax us a hundred percent and run the economy into the ground! Won't even be worth it to build a business anymore. Might as well go on wellfare and live on handouts like the rest of them!”

That got a whole bunch of agreement. Some mumblings started up about how Loki's attack on New York was a lie fabricated by the government to cover up an actual attack by Al Qaida that was the result of the President's "Kumbaya" foreign policy leaving America weak.

“We don't want them pushing their lifestyle on us and redefining everything,” Someone else shouted. “Why not just call my cat a dog and a camel a horse!”

That riled them up more than their taxes and a major attack on American soil. 

“We're trying to stop them from turning marriage into a gay thing!”

They were all yelling now, a few started throwing things at Steve, empty styrofoam coffee cups and crumpled paper from their pockets. Steve didn't know what to do, other than stupidly block what they threw with his shield, the way he had so long ago before the rest of the 107th in Italy. These were civilians. He couldn't fight them. He apparently couldn't reason with them either. 

Tony Stark came up behind him. “Tough crowd, hey, Cap? Guess the spangly suit doesn't do it for everyone. May as well have some fun at their expense.” He turned to face the crowd. “Hey, bigots! You're an embarrassment to the party. Watch this.” 

Before Steve could say anything, Tony seized him by the shoulders and yanked him close. He kissed him. Not on the mouth, but near enough. That brief touch of warm lips shook Steve in a way he hadn't thought to brace himself for. His eyes closed on instinct. This world and his world blurred and for a heartbeat it was Peggy running alongside him on his way to Schmidt's plane. Then it was that other thing, the thing Steve had tried to pretend hadn't happened, only now he wished...

Stark let him go, Steve would have wrestled down the fresh and overwhelming surge of loss and dismissed Stark's little stunt for what it was, an attempt to shock a prejudice crowd, had he not looked directly into Stark's face. Steve couldn't take it—Tony's amusement, his triumph, the smug _satisfaction_ of putting "Gramps" off balance—not with what had welled up in him. Saving New York hadn't changed Stark any. Everything was still a joke to him, even another man's grief. 

Anger boiled over and Steve forgot about his superior strength. He pushed Stark away so hard he stumbled. “To think I was starting to change my mind about you,” Steve got out through clenched teeth. “My mistake.” 

He headed back for his bike. Stark said something from behind him, but Steve didn't listen. Probably just a wisecrack about how the media won't be ignoring him after that. 

Steve couldn't focus on the road once he made it out of the parking lot. It all came back in a lightning flash, thanks to Stark, a lightning flash and a ton of bricks on his chest that made it hard to breathe.

**

They were sitting on Steve's cot in his quarters in London, just the two of them finally catching up where it was quiet after a long night of celebrating the rescue of Bucky and the others. The quiet was nice. In all Steve's dreams of being a soldier, he hadn't realized a whole bar full of them could make so much noise.

Bucky had his knees drawn up against the drab green wool of the blankets, a bottle of whiskey in one hand. He'd downed half of it, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, but Steve didn't bother prying it away and telling him he didn't need any more when Bucky brought the bottle up for another sip. Bucky had been through hell and tonight was about celebrating. He could drink until he passed out if he wanted. With Steve's new strength, he could carry him back to his own bed and get a kick out of Bucky complaining about it later. If he remembered. 

He wasn't there yet though and Steve pressed him for all his stories. Bucky had seen real action with the 107th. He'd been on the battlefields where men were laying down their lives day after day. Steve wanted to know what that was like. The way Bucky told it, it was awful. Bucky talked about seeing men with their limbs blown off, disorganized supply drops few and far between, and watching soldiers he'd gotten close to bleed out and die right next to him. He took another drink and got a far away look in his eyes, something in him permanently shaken by it all. 

"Let's talk about something else."

Steve let up with his questions and they changed the subject to things Bucky missed back home, like baseball and not having to piss in front of twenty other guys and—until recently—Steve.

Bucky was right, war was a whole lot worse than getting beat up in a back alley—hard to ignore that after you had dragged your half delirious best friend off a HYDRA torture table. But this—the two of them here, together—was exactly how it was supposed to be, a couple of guys close as brothers getting ready to go up side-by-side against an evil that threatened freedom itself. It was just how it was supposed to be, until Bucky set his bottle down.

“So let me see.” His grey-blue eyes had gone glassy from drinking by now and his lips were wet with a few stray drops of whiskey, dark hair warm brown in the lamplight. Steve couldn't have been any happier, having him back, alive.

“See what?” The suit? The films Schmidt had mentioned? Knowing Bucky he probably wanted naked drawings of those chorus girls.

“What you said those scientists did to you. Push-ups and training sure as hell don't do all _that._ " Bucky nudged Steve's new, broader shoulder where Steve was a couple inches taller now, then he shifted over to face him, straddling Steve's legs on his knees. "You're going to let me see, right?”

Steve didn't see he had a choice, the way Bucky had all but cornered him. He leaned back against the wall and pulled his undershirt over his head, watching Bucky's eyes go a little awestruck.

It must have been a shock to him, that science could give a skinny, ninety-pound kid this Herculean body. Bucky's gaze swept over every added inch of muscle and bulk and height and all he could say, with a half bottle of whiskey's logic, was, "Was afraid you'd be all distorted and stretched out under there or something."

Steve wanted to laugh at the idea of being yanked widthwise and lengthwise like that story about Procrustes' bed he had learned in school, but Bucky brought a hand up to touch Steve's chest as if he couldn't believe all that muscle and bulk were real flesh and the sound died in Steve's throat. Bucky's touch was light and warm. Steve knew that from the dozens of times Bucky had cleaned his cuts after a fight, but without the filter of pain or the sting of antiseptic or frustration that Bucky had had to save his ass yet again, the almost ticklish brush of Bucky's fingertips was all Steve could focus on now. He sat stock still as though this were another examination, another test, only the room hadn't gotten this hot whenever Doctor Erskine touched him. Part of Steve put the rush of heat to embarrassment that Bucky knew the real him—the scrawny kid who got pounded flat into the sidewalk by guys Bucky could fend off with one punch—and that, whatever Bucky said, he probably couldn't believe the SSR had chosen him of all people for their experiment. The rest of Steve tried to rationalize the giddy sensations rushing through him as being overjoyed Bucky was alive and that he saw Steve as a hero now instead of some little guy he had to worry about and look out for. 

“You know no girl's ever going to notice me now with Captain America around,” Bucky made a good show of looking deprived already. Steve wanted to answer that he doubted Bucky had anything to worry about, but then Bucky traced the swell of pectoral muscle with one searingly warm finger and wet his lips. “They'll see all this and I won't even exist for them. What If I never so much as kiss a girl again? You gonna make hanging around you worth all that?"

Steve swallowed. the tingles the path of Bucky's fingertip stirred under his skin didn't keep him half so still as Bucky's eyes, stormy blue and intent on him all of a sudden. His words were just him giving Steve a hard time, but his eyes were saying something else, as though the whiskey or his capture or the war itself had made him want to peel away something on the surface and let show what had lain raw beneath for a long time. 

Steve swallowed again. He could forget about looking away. It wasn't happening.

“I don't know. How would I?"

His own voice didn't come out half as rough as Bucky's. “You gotta kiss me every time a dame ignores me." What, did Bucky want to see if he could still make Steve do ridiculous things on a dare or because he said so? "Starting with tonight," Bucky went on, "because that was one beautiful woman who won't be giving Sargent Barnes the time of day.”

Right. Peggy. Maybe if Bucky had been a little less presumptuous, and a little more subtle with his eyes... Strange to think about her while Steve's eyes had wandered to Bucky's mouth. He had shapely, pouty lips, like a girl's. Girls loved kissing him. Steve had watched countless times, overheard their muffled moans and giggles, Bucky's too. Steve had never been kissed... He forced a hollow laugh, something tightening and fluttering at the same time in the pit of his stomach. Bucky had to be pretty damn drunk to joke about the two of them kissing.

“You must have spent a lot of time with those French guys..."

Bucky laughed, then cocked his head. “You scared? You'll disappoint the girls if someone doesn't show you how it's done.”

He really was drunk if he couldn't make up his mind who was supposed to kiss whom in this dare or whatever this was. "You first, then. Show me how it's done." 

This was dumb, and risky. If Bucky realized it, he didn't seem to care. The hand on Steve's chest slid up and wrapped around the back of his neck. Bucky drew him forward and leaned up, and of all the ways to react, all the optimal reflexes the serum gave him, Steve stupidly closed his eyes and waited to see if Bucky would really do it.

He did it all right, and not the quick, playful brush of his mouth Steve expected. The pressure of his lips was hot and soft, gentle at first then firmer, coaxing Steve to respond, If resisting was the right thing to do, Steve went blank on how to go about it. His mouth opened instinctively and Bucky took his lower lip between his, sucking just a little. One of Steve's hands curled into the scratchy green wool of the blanket. It didn't want to stay there though and both hands went to Bucky's waist. Bucky slid closer on his knees, curling a hand under Steve's jaw to pull him closer too and suddenly all those first experiences of running and taking flying leaps with the power of Steve's new body weren't half the rush as the thrill running through him. Steve never knew his scientifically optimized heart could beat so fast.

Letting out a muffled sound, Bucky got his other hand between them, following the wider curve of Steve's shoulder and smoothing over the muscle of his arm before it returned to his chest. His mouth tasted like whiskey and home and total confusion about whether this was right. Steve's body wasn't confused though. It buzzed all over from being touched and downright ached where he was starting to get hard, which was... He didn't know what it was, something between exhilaration and fuzzy panic. 

Bucky pulled back just a little, his lips flushed red and his eyes shining. He had to catch his breath to rasp out, “I should feel like this isn't you, in a body like this, but I guess those scientists just made you into what you always were, a bigger man than the rest of us, coming for me and the others back there.” 

Steve's eyes watered. serum or no serum he wouldn't have left Bucky in that place. He didn't know how to say it, not in the magnitude he felt it and meant it. All he could do was get a hand in the dark waves of Bucky's hair and pull his mouth back to his. 

They kissed with more heat to it this time. Bucky's tongue pushed wet through his lips and Steve's hand stroked the nape of Bucky's neck where he held onto him. It amazed him how, just like walking out of a lab and chasing down an assassin with a body twice his former size, something he'd had no idea how to do figured itself out. Bucky's mouth left his and slid along his jaw toward his neck. Steve arched his head back and that gave Bucky's hand more room between them. It moved down Steve's chest and made a straight line for his lap.

Steve's whole body locked in a dead freeze. Bucky breathed raggedly against his ear, “You going to show me whether this is bigger too?”

All the anticipation, all the dizzying exhilaration of finally experiencing _this_ crashed down on Steve in such a wave of tingling heat and nearly painful pounding in his groin Steve was afraid he would embarrass himself right then, well past whether this was wrong or right. 

It was the worst possible moment for someone to come banging on the door.

**

Remembering was like being blown to bits in slow motion, cut clear through piece by piece. Steve's vision was so blurry blinking back tears and the image of Bucky's bright eyes and flushed face in that dim room he could barely see the city street in front of him. He rounded a corner, cut his turn too close, accelerated when he meant to slow down, struck the curb, and went flying through the air.

The impact of hitting the sidewalk knocked Steve back to his senses. He rolled over, gritting his teeth in pain. Tires screeched to a halt and he looked up to see Tony Stark getting out of his fancy car. 

“Ok, so you're like the one person on the planet who wouldn't defy sexual orientation and jump at the chance to sleep with me. I get it. Good. Less awkward. Don't have to worry about Pepper killing you. But nowadays we do things a little differently. We don't run off clutching our pearls, crashing into sidewalky things when we don't like something.”

Steve sat up, bracing himself with a hand on the pavement. Stark really was full of himself. “You think it's fun, trying to shock me, Stark? You know, I left a life behind me. You think the idea of two men is something your world invented that I've never heard of?"

Stark made a little protesting gesture. “My world? Whoa, Grandpa, we're from the same planet here.”

It sure didn't feel like it. “I lost someone,” Steve snapped. “Someone I loved. The night he died, I couldn't even get drunk because of the effects of the serum.”

That shut Stark up. For half a minute. “Love as in 'we band of brothers' love or that which didn't speak its name back then love?”

“Doesn't matter.” Bucky was gone and Stark was making a game of twisting a knife in the wound. For Stark and everyone else, the war Steve had left behind was a distant thing you learned about in history class. For him, he'd been sleeping beside Bucky a couple months ago on the cold, hard ground of Nazi-occupied Europe. 

“Either way he was worth ten of me, right? I'm guessing this guy's the one you meant.”

Ignoring the edge in Stark's voice, Steve looked away. “He kissed me one night, after a whole lot of whiskey—I mean really kissed me. So there you go, Stark.” 

It hadn't been anything like when Peggy had kissed him. That had been a dream come to life, the beautiful girl who should have been completely out of his league believing he could save the day and it had been just as amazing as it was supposed to be when the right girl kissed you. With Bucky it was the exhilaration of clawing through the last few boundaries between someone you thought you couldn't get closer to and realizing how easy it would be to tumble into each other and become one being. 

Stark paced along the curb for a few moments. “You know, you're a lot hotter of a mess than I realized. Wait, that came out wrong, or maybe... No, not going there. The point is, you're not helping. And will you get up? Unless something's broken. We can move you, right?”

Steve didn't think anything was broken. Stark offered his hand and he took it. “Not helping what?” He sat himself down on a bus bench a few yards away.

Stark sat beside him. “My quest to reinvent myself and be the good guy after the whole weapons things blew up in my face.” He looked impatiently at Steve as though he had missed a cue and prompted, “There was a pun there....” Steve nodded to say that he got it and Stark went on. “Take a look at yourself. From day one you ask for nothing else but to fight the good fight. You give your body to science, become America's biggest hero, and what do you get? Bam. Crash. Nighty-night in a really cold block of ice. Wake up seventy years later in this godawful place and everyone you love, everything you knew is gone, and now you tell me there's not a bottle big enough to drink your way out of it. So where's the reward for doing the right thing and being the good guy? Where's the incentive?”

What more did Stark need? He had everything. The money, the shining monument to his massive ego, the toys, the girls. He'd had it long before he put on the Iron Man suit. Maybe that was what made him so infuriating. Stark got away with being arrogant, egotistical and full of himself and no one up there punished him for it. 

He was wrong though. People like Bucky and the rest of the guys were America's biggest heroes, people who didn't have enhanced abilities or fancy suits and went up against the enemy anyway in the name of freedom even when they were outmatched. Anyone who thought otherwise needed a lesson in respect. 

“You don't do what's right to get something out of it, Tony.”

Stark drew a deep breath, as if caring about someone else's problems had worn him out. “Yeah, we do.”

Steve leaned against the back of the bench. The truth of what Tony had said ate away at him. What had he gotten? Time on the news? A few documentaries and some trading cards? That was people using a symbol for their own purposes, not anything for him. A tiny part of Steve wondered if he was being punished for not being happy with himself the way God had made him. Bucky was dead because of him. He never got a chance with Peggy. He had no one here. He folded his arms and felt himself sinking. He should have known the life the serum gave him was too good to be true.

Tony was watching him. “Do you need like a hug or something? A supportive, reassuring, manly hug from one member of the team to another even though I'm not a team person? Because I can do that. Or I could just...” He patted Steve on the back in such a ridiculously awkward way it struck Steve as funny. The smile he cracked seemed to relieve Stark a little, or encourage him. He said, without taking his hand away, “You heard me call those guys back there bigots, right? Do I get points for that?”

Steve nodded. It was reassuring to know one of his new teammates saw that their kind of hate didn't belong in America. 

“Good because your issues are making me hungry. How about we go get some all-American something or other and play twenty questions about Mr. Dashing Two Beer Queer, starting with... was he a Nazi?"

"Why would I kiss a Nazi?"

Stark shrugged. "With a guy like you, Rogers, I figure it either has to be some bad boy type you thought you could save or the blandest person on the planet. Come on." He got up from the bench. "This'll be a lot more fun than whatever Fury wants."

Steve knew a peace offering when he saw one and got up to follow him, but he still wasn't telling Stark who it was. He wasn't sure Bucky would have wanted anyone to know. 

**

Steve thought a lot more about Bucky after that. He visited his empty grave in Arlington Cemetery and did his best to say a proper goodbye. It was time to accept that he couldn't have him back, that all Steve could do was keep fighting in a way that would have made Bucky proud and hope he had been resting in peace all these years though they had never recovered his body and brought him home. As Steve knelt there, all he could think was that he shouldn't have kissed him that night after he had gotten him out of that Hydra facility. He should have just held onto him. 

Fury wanted to see him when he got back. As Steve waited outside his office, he sketched Bucky the way he wanted to remember him, handsome in his dress uniform the night before he had gone to war, hat at a rakish angle and one corner of his mouth curved up in a smile. 

"Who was he?" Steve hadn't realized Natasha had come up behind him. 

He finished shading in the curve of Bucky's lips and put the pencil down. "My best friend since I was twelve. Lost him in the war." 

She came closer and flipped the pages of his sketchbook to another drawing of Bucky, sound asleep with his cheek pressed to the barrel of his loaded rifle that he cradled in one arm. That one visibly startled her and Natasha quickly flipped back to the drawing Steve had been working on.

"What?" Steve asked. He didn't think anything could startle her. 

She took a breath to pull herself together and blinked something away. "Reminds me of someone I knew once. We were in love, or thought we were."

She wasn't ordinarily so open and Steve turned to ask if this was before the Red Room, but Natasha turned and walked on down the hall to wherever she was going. 

**

The first time Steve fought the Winter Soldier, it was brutal, rough hand-to-hand. Shrouded in so much secrecy Natasha said the man himself didn't know his own identity and so elusive he was practically a myth, the Winter Soldier didn't have to worry about fighting clean for the front page news or about being a leader or a symbol. He only worried about accomplishing the mission by whatever means necessary. Faceless, nameless, he was the opposite of Captain America, the perfect soldier Erskine didn't want. No loss to live with, no burdens, not even a conscience, just a man turned into a living weapon. No one would envy that existence, but it made Steve itch for a freedom he hadn't had since the war, far away from this time of media scrutiny. 

The mission was to blow up a hotel downtown. Chasing after him, Steve thought he could knock him down with a hit from the shield, but the Soldier caught it in his gloved left hand, fingertips shining silver in the darkness of the alley behind the place. He sent the shield flying with so much force it tore through a chainlink fence a good two hundred feet away. Steve slowed, stunned to see someone else handle the shield so well. The last person who had picked it up in a fight... Steve hurriedly blinked away the image. The shield banged against a gutter on the side of the building and bounced back a few yards out of his reach. 

He thought his faster reflexes would let him get past his enemy to retrieve it, he thought his best chance was with the shield because that was how he was used to fighting. But he underestimated, made the mistake of getting too close, and the Soldier's gloved fist shot toward him just as fast, slamming into his face and knocking him to the asphalt. The blow had too much power for an ordinary man. Steve's vision swam with stars the way it hadn't in a back alley fight since before his transformation. Dazed but suddenly racing with adrenaline, he rolled, grabbed the Winter Soldier's other wrist before he could reach for his gun and the two of them ended up grappling together on the ground, black leather and kevlar pressed full-length to red, white, and blue. 

The Soldier seized full advantage of the moments it took Steve to recover from the first punch, the thud of his heart against Steve's chest all that convinced Steve he was really human behind that mask. He dealt Steve a second punch, just as strong as the first, and while Steve reeled from that, got a thigh between his legs and kneed him in the groin. One flaw of the serum was that it didn't dull pain and before Steve knew it, the man on top of him was sliding sideways. Then he had Steve facedown on the asphalt, gloved hand around his throat. He squeezed until Steve went lightheaded, making high noises in his struggle for air, the cold pressure of the silver thumb against Steve's windpipe a sharp contrast to the heat of the Soldier's thighs clamped around his hips where he straddled him. 

Steve didn't know why he focused on that. He got his head together and with a twist of his lower body threw his enemy off him, getting hold of the Soldier's arm just as he was about to draw his pistol. The gun went clattering on top of Steve's shield and, angry, the Winter Soldier lunged at him. They rolled and struggled some more, both trying to keep the other from getting free to retrieve their weapon. Steve counted on the superior endurance from the serum winning out, that the Soldier would eventually tire so Steve could knock him out with a punch of his own and bring him back to SHIELD. He didn't tire though and Steve had to fight to keep him from killing him with his bare hands, to pin him to the ground with his knee or his thigh or his weight and pin his left arm to his side so the Soldier couldn't knock him out first. Steve noticed he didn't try and hit with his right.

It wasn't easy. Steve's blood pounded in his ears and he was sweating under the suit wherever they touched. He got the Soldier on his back though, long brown hair spread onto the asphalt, knee between his legs and a grip on both arms. Steve had to keep him from blowing up that hotel and somewhere on him was the detonator. He let the Soldier's right arm go and felt for it, groping over his chest, his hips, his legs—anywhere he might hide it under the black of his clothes—but all Steve felt was heat and hard muscle. 

Laying his head back, the Winter Soldier let out a breathy laugh as Steve's hands moved over him. "Sure you're not enjoying this...?"

The words were muffled by the mask, but distinctly American. That wasn't why Steve froze though. It was hearing him speak at all, the idea that the body underneath him, this living weapon, was just a man.... It sent a jolt down Steve's spine too much like excitement that coiled tight in the pit of his stomach.

For a heartbeat, Steve thought about reaching up and pulling away the mask, seeing the Soldier's face, _knowing_ him. It was a heartbeat too long. The Soldier got one leg onto his shoulder and then the other, squeezing with his thighs and fisting his free hand in Steve's hair, forcing his head down into his lap to cut off his air again. Again, Steve went lightheaded, the little guy in him even panicked. Even then, he was far too aware of his face pressed to the heat of the Soldier's groin, the pounding there, and the fact that the Soldier was half hard. The tangle of excitement in Steve's belly shot straight to his own cock, but he had to do something. He wrapped a hand around one of the Soldier's thighs and pried his legs open enough to get free. He came up gasping for breath, blood pounding in his ears and his groin, and the next thing he saw was the Soldier's combat boot before he drove it hard into Steve's face. 

He got away. Fighting off pain and shame and dizziness, Steve ran after him, blood streaming into his mouth, but the Soldier slipped over the fence the shield had torn through and disappeared in the dark like the phantom he was supposed to be. Steve's only consolation was that he had stopped him from blowing up God knew how many people in that hotel.

Steve healed fast, but he lay down with an ache in his body that night, restless and still tingling with adrenaline. Sliding a hand under the blankets and stroking himself seemed the fastest way to get rid of it, and as Steve spilled into his fist, panting through a sharp yet unsatisfying orgasm, all he could hear was something Bucky had said a long time ago about how he must like getting beat up. 

**

The next time Steve got close enough to fight the Winter Soldier in a warehouse in D.C., he thought he was better prepared. He didn't bother with the shield and he made sure to punch first. It didn't do much good. The Soldier blocked it with his left arm, easily taking the impact of Steve's fist with something far too hard to be flesh and blood. In the next heartbeat, he was swinging at Steve trying to land a punch of his own. Wrenching his body backward out of reach, Steve grabbed the Soldier's arm above the elbow and stopped the blow in mid motion, fingers tearing through the leather of the Soldier's jacket and digging into something cold beneath. Metal. It shone in the artificial light. Steve ripped the Soldier's torn sleeve off at the shoulder. His arm was pure metal all the way up. 

Steve didn't have time to stare. The Soldier had the Cube in a leather pouch at his hip and if he wasn't stopped he would use it to set off a bomb powerful enough to blow up the entire Capital. Letting go of that robotic arm, Steve ducked another punch, kneed the Soldier hard in the stomach, and sent him staggering backward into a concrete wall. 

"Who are you?" Steve demanded, his blood pounding. It didn't matter except that the fight had become personal, America's bright symbol of freedom against this shadow who existed for nothing but to get dirty. 

The Soldier didn't take the impact of this hit as well as the first. He swayed, but kept his feet. Steve saw it for an opening anyway, closing in to make a grab for the Cube. The Soldier recovered himself just in time, twisting his lower body away and holding Steve off with a thigh pressed to his. Steve got a hand between the Soldier's legs to push his thigh out of the way, only for the Soldier to fist a metal hand in the front of Steve's uniform and yank him forward, shoving his gun against Steve's mouth. 

He got his finger on the trigger, rested his head back against the concrete, to catch his breath, and only then did he answer. "The man who's gonna splatter your brains all over the place."

He shoved the gun so hard between Steve's lips, the cold length of the barrel hit Steve in the teeth, those few inches and the sweat of the fight and the heaviness of their breathing all there was between them. That, and the mask, the gnawing reminder that the Winter Soldier was just a man under all his black leather, hard muscle, and ruthlessness. 

In one of his affectionate moments, Bucky had told Steve a long time ago that he had an idiot's sense of self-preservation. It must have been true, because instead of using his enhanced reaction time to drive his knee into the Soldier's elbow and send that gun clattering to the ground, Steve reached up like he had wanted to do the last time. He told himself Captain America was supposed to inspire people into doing what was right, that he wanted to look into the eyes of the man who could do the awful things the Winter Soldier had. Part of him just wanted to know the face of the man who had given him back a war and made him feel alive these past few weeks. Steve didn't know which was more true as he tore away the mask and uncovered him.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve was still reeling from the shock that it had been _Bucky_ behind that mask all along, dealing damage to the West for over half a century, when they brought him back to SHIELD, unconscious from three tranquilizer darts, carried off the quinjet, and wheeled on a gurney by a flurry of SHIELD personnel not to some high security cell as Steve had expected, but straight down to medical.

The tranquilizer wasn't how they had stopped him. It was merely how they had kept Bucky from turning his gun on himself and putting a bullet in his head. SHIELD, unsurprisingly, had a vested interest in what was in Bucky's head.

The scene in the warehouse flashed through Steve's mind over and over on the flight back.

"You're my best friend, this isn't you!" Steve had shouted at Bucky over the barrel of that gun, growing more and more desperate the more nothing he said sparked any hint of recognition or memory in Bucky's eyes. It was as though the Red Room had found a way to put someone else in his body. From what Natasha had told Steve of what they could do, they about had. But _something_ of Bucky had to be in there. Something inside him Steve could touch that would at least make him want to listen. 

Bucky shook his long hair out of his face and gave the side of his gun a caress with his thumb. "Got my best friend right here. Now stop talking."

"Bucky..." 

_You looked after me when I was small. We were like brothers. You're an American soldier. We fought in the war together, remember? You wanted to enlist the day we heard Pearl Harbor was bombed._ Steve had tried all of it, but nothing worked. It was like yelling into an open grave, long hair and dead eyes and missing arm nothing but signs of decay. Steve could shout all he wanted, but no amount of pleading or love or wanting Bucky back could put the life into him again. 

After everything Steve had lost, Bucky himself far from the least of it, it was too much. If this was how the world or fate repaid him, taking the most important thing from his past and spitting it back out in a twisted empty shell, then part of Steve couldn't wait for Bucky to pull the trigger. He knew he couldn't let him though. The guilt of letting Bucky fall from that train wasn't a cross Steve had any right to put down. 

"Not going to let you blow up all those people, Buck." Steve's throat was tight. It was like talking to someone in a coma who couldn't hear you. You didn't realize how much you missed someone until they were there but not. "I owe it to you not to let you do something the real you never would have done. You weren't even a violent man." He owed it to Bucky's memory not to let anyone use him like this. 

Wetting his lips, Bucky paused a moment. It wasn't the pause of a memory registering that Steve had been trying so hard for, but the Winter Soldier taking in the earnestness of Steve's desperation and becoming frustrated he couldn't remember information that might have been important or useful. It gave Steve a shred of hope to cling to and that pause was his moment.

It wasn't easy to stomach doing, but he grabbed Bucky's right arm holding the gun and gave a hard, sudden twist, knocking it out of Bucky's hand. Yelling in pain, Bucky instinctively grabbed for one of the pistols on his hip and Steve seized that moment too, lunging for the Cube and tearing it off him where he had it in a black leather pouch strapped to his belt.

Done talking, Bucky slammed his metal fist in a brutal blow right to Steve's solar plexus, grabbing for the Cube back while Steve fought the instinct to double over. He was ready to shoot Steve straight through the eye with the pistol Bucky now held in his right hand. He might have succeeded too, but Steve sucked down the pain in a breath and in a last moment of desperation shoved the Cube into Bucky's face to push him back and shouted at him to remember.

The Cube instantly blazed with blue light, its glow falling over Bucky's face like the rays of an otherworldly sun. Whatever it was doing, Bucky couldn't move and his eyes went wide and blank as if he were seeing something he didn't know how to understand. The Cube's power, Steve thought. There had to be some allure to the thing. Bucky flinched away from it, started shaking his head, muttering, "no" and "oh God" under his breath. He dropped his pistol and then started to scream, dropping to the ground and crawling almost blindly for it.

The light of the Cube died down. Dumbly, Steve was afraid it had done something to Bucky's insides and that he had been screaming in pain, but Bucky was too intent on reaching his gun and Steve began to understand what the Cube had done to him. 

Getting hold of the pistol, Bucky pointed it toward himself, his hand shaking so badly he dropped it twice and had to fumble to get his finger around the trigger. Steve grabbed for him, and the struggle between them became a very different one trying to keep Bucky from shooting himself instead of Steve.

On his knees beside him, Steve got an arm around him and tried telling him they could sort through this, that it was over now, that they would bring down the people who had done this to him, but Bucky didn't seem to hear him or recognize him any more than he had before, or know he was there. He wrenched away from Steve as he tried to pull Bucky against him, slapped a hand on the ground and threw up everything in his stomach, groping for the one gun left on him.

That was the moment a dozen SHIELD agents rushed in. 

"Yep, that's him. Totally called it."

Steve blinked himself back to the present. Tony and Bruce appeared out of nowhere to join the crowd of doctors and scientists wheeling Bucky down yet another hallway. 

"Called what?" Steve didn't take his eyes off Bucky, head lolling to one side and stripped of every gun or knife he'd worn. Steve wasn't in the mood for Stark being pleased with himself right now. 

"Bad boy." 

Steve almost rounded on him. This wasn't the time or the place... "He's not," Steve said anyway. He had a feeling he was going to have to get used to defending Bucky after all this. "They-"

Stark cut him off. "Look at the angry death metal look he's sporting, Rogers. I've read the files. For the past sixty years your boy's been as bad as they come. Still, masked, world class assassin, I didn't expect him to be... cute."

Hadn't Tony seen photographs of Bucky with the Commandos? What had he expected, that Bucky would be disfigured after the fall? Steve's eyes moved over him. The clothes and the hair and the metal arm were all the man the Red Room had made, but the faint shadow of stubble and the pout of his lips were all the Bucky Steve remembered. Steve had spent a lot of time admiring him growing up. He thought it was envy, because Bucky was handsome and tall and good with the girls—everything he had wanted to be—but Steve was willing to admit now that after the serum he hadn't stopped admiring. 

"He's a looker..." Steve sighed, hanging back to let them wheel Bucky into a room full of highly-advanced equipment. "Always has been."

Fury stormed in. Bucky was so heavy with his metal arm it took three men to lift him onto a table. "Someone find out why this man is still alive," Fury barked. "And no one in here talks, understand?" He didn't have to say that was an order. "Shitstorm" didn't begin to describe it if this got out. An America soldier guilty of all those crimes... Fury couldn't get what he wanted out of Bucky if the government threw him into this Gitmo prison Steve had heard about. He didn't want to think about what would happen to Bucky there, whether he had any rights or if brainwashing was a mitigating factor in treason. 

Someone yelled for a blood sample. Steve wanted to yell that it wasn't important, that all he cared about was how much of Bucky was still in there, but all the doctors and scientists cared about was whether he had the serum. 

A small woman in a white coat came up next to Bucky wheeling a tray full of tools. Someone else unbuttoned the right sleeve of his coat to push it out of the way so she could get a tourniquet around his arm while a couple of scientists readied a computer and were calling for various scans. They ran some sort of device around his head that could tell them Steve couldn't imagine what and that was the moment Bucky started coming to.

His eyes, unfocused from the heavy dose of whatever sedative those agents had shot him with, went straight to the machines and the number of people in lab coats pressing in on him. The fight returned to him in a a heartbeat. He drove his boot into the small woman trying to get blood and she and her tray of tools went flying. Someone caught her, and thankfully she wasn't hurt. Bucky punched one of the scientists standing over him with his real hand, knocking him to the ground, and grabbed the scanning device with the artificial one, shocking it with a pulse of _something_ from his palm that burned out both it and the computer it was attached to. 

"Sweet!" Stark let out. "Get your head on straight, Dark Rambo. I want a better look at that robot arm."

No one paid him any attention. Every agent in the room was too busy trying to hold Bucky down by any limb they could reach and get restraints on him or trying to pull off his clothes or hold his head still by the hair so they could get the rest of their monitors on him. The more he fought, the more they were convinced he had the serum. It wasn't the fight of a man trying to kill, but the wild-eyed panic of a cornered animal. The scene was awful and hard to watch, not the way a prisoner of war should be welcomed home.

When yet another agent went down, Fury growled. "Stark, find a way to get that arm out of the equation. There's bound be a way to power it down or get it off."

Three more agents rushed forward to try and hold Bucky so Stark could work. The threat of being without an arm only made Bucky fight harder. Steve hadn't seen Natasha enter the room, but she got between Bucky and the men trying to subdue him before they went flying like all the others.

Bucky grabbed her wrist, muttering something low and hoarse Steve couldn't hear. He heard the tone though, groggy questions in Russian, startled recognition in his eyes where he looked up at her. 

"He doesn't know who any of you are," she snapped at the agents and at Fury, not bothering to pull her wrist away. This was personal for her, but more than that she was protective of Bucky. "He thinks you're trying to manipulate his mind again. He's saying he doesn't want to kill anyone else."

Fury whirled on Steve. "You told me you used the Cube to make him remember."

He had, but remember what and how much? Bucky had recognized Natasha at once, but hadn't seemed to distinguish him from everyone else in the room. 

"Must be remembering when they found him," Bruce spoke up beside Tony. "Getting seventy years of violence back in a flash is bound to cause a breakdown."

Tony patted his shoulder with a smile. "And you say you're not that kind of doctor."

Realizing he had stood half stunned the whole time without saying a word, Steve stepped forward. "No one's going to make you do anything, Bucky." Anyone else in the room could take that however they wanted. 

"Except for something about that hair," Tony had to add. "Can we get some scissors? I keep expecting him to break into 'Thriller'."

"Stark..." Natasha said with exaggerated patience and a clear threat behind it. "This is a dangerous man..."

" _Dangerous._ Yep. I had that album."

Steve took another step to lay a hand on Bucky's arm, the real one. Maybe he should have held his hand from the beginning, he didn't know. It all felt so impossible. Bucky jerked away and snapped something at Natasha, angry. It was like a kick to the gut and Steve drew back. Maybe Bucky didn't want Steve to touch hiim after what the Cube had done. Maybe he blamed him for leaving him for the Russians, or didn't remember him at all. Steve had never asked to go back for the body. He hadn't been able to stomach the thought of Bucky as a red smear on a rock somewhere at the bottom of that ravine. 

"He doesn't think you're real," Natasha told him. "He thinks they put you in his head."

"Probably doesn't help that he's seeing about three of you," Bruce put in matter-of-factly.

Fury had had enough. Before Steve could say a word, he barked, "Fine. Agent Romanoff, since you're the only one Barnes doesn't want to kill, you can explain who we are and what he's doing here. Everyone else, out. That includes you, Rogers."

Jaw clenched, Steve followed the others out. Bucky was his, not some property of SHIELD Fury could hand off. He should be the one in there with him, helping him sort out what had happened and what was real. But if Fury expected Natasha to conduct an interrogation Steve wanted no part of being in there. 

The door closed and he watched in the hall through the room's small window. Bucky pushed himself unsteadily into a sitting position and made room for Natasha to sit facing him on the edge of the table. She spoke, and whatever she said, he listened—warily, but he listened. Steve could read his face though as he looked at her and he remembered what Bucky had said to him in Zola's lab the first time Bucky had seen him six feet tall and big enough to half carry him. _What happened to you?_ Not "what dumb thing have you done now?" but what happened to him, as though someone had harmed him. Bucky was looking at Natasha the same way now, as if SHIELD had her prisoner. He was protective of her too.

Steve was ashamed of it, but for a bare moment, the guilt lifted the smallest bit for what had happened to Bucky on that train, that in grabbing the shield when Steve was down maybe Bucky hadn't died for him, but for something that was simply in his nature. 

Bucky tentatively took Natasha's hand with his metal one and Steve felt nothing but loss all over again.

As he walked away, leaving them alone, Tony said, "Maybe if you went back in there and laid one on him?"

**

The next time Steve saw Bucky they had moved him to some sort of holding room with an observation window where he could be watched at any given time. He sat on the floor directly under it where Steve couldn't see his face, black clothes gone. The agent standing guard told Steve Bucky had ripped them off in a fit of agitation and that they'd even had to take his shoes away after he had picked the laces out and stared at them for a half hour as though contemplating strangling himself. They gave him blue paper clothes and it hit Steve right in the stomach to see him with only one arm. With his left sleeve hanging empty, he didn't look like a dangerous killing machine. He looked like yet another vet disabled from the war. 

Steve rounded on the agent to tell him this was cruel, but the guy just shrugged and said, "The arm? He told us he didn't want it."

Steve wasn't sure he believed that, not when Bucky would be so much easier for the agents to handle without it, but he let it pass for the moment and an urgent message on his phone about a possible HYDRA cell in the city called him away. 

He tried to visit Bucky every day for a week after that, but someone was always in there with him—a telepath, a scientist, various agents pressing him for what he remembered. He didn't want to talk to Bucky with someone else there and if Bucky was still in too much shock to place what was real and what wasn't Steve didn't want him thinking he was part of SHIELD's round the clock... whatever they were doing, there to help them get something out of him. He kept a close watch though when he could, standing where Bucky couldn't see him, ready to intervene if any of their tactics went too far. But all they seemed to do was subject him to endless questions.

Two days later Steve came back from taking on the leader of that HYDRA cell to find Bucky gone and the room dark with no agent outside the door. Even when they took Bucky away for their tests—always sedated—they left the guard outside. Fear cold as a block of ice slammed in the pit of Steve's stomach, fear that SHIELD had gotten all they wanted out of Bucky and had handed him over to the government as a traitor and a terrorist to face all the disgusting things Steve had read this new America was guilty of. 

He went straight to Fury.

"Where is he?"

Fury looked up from the file on his desk. He didn't have to ask who. "The sergeant is doing a little decompressing."

"What the hell does that mean?" Another interrogation tactic? Was Bucky not remembering fast enough for SHIELD's liking? 

"It means," Fury said irritably, as if he didn't appreciate the accusation in Steve's voice, "that he's working his shit out, somewhere quiet. See, nowadays we don't just hand a soldier a bottle of booze and expect him to come back from where he's been like nothing's happened. We know better."

Steve remembered Bucky with his bottle of booze, sitting on his cot in London, but last week they didn't trust Bucky with a shoelace and now they thought he needed to be by himself? 

"And after that? What are you going to do with him?"

Fury leaned back in his chair. "What do you do with a broken man? He barely touches the meals we give him. I ask if he's gonna eat and he looks me right in the eye and says, 'Do I deserve to?' I told him what's the matter? You think maybe if your skirt hadn't been so short when the Russians found you... wish you hadn't gotten so flirty out there comatose in the ice and given them the wrong idea? I told him if I'd known he was throwing a pity party I would have brought a date. He just stared at me."

So Fury agreed it was ridiculous to hold Bucky responsible for the Winter Soldier's crimes. A ten ton weight lifted from Steve's chest that he wouldn't have to fight Fury on that. "I want to see him." Steve thought he had lost the most important person in his life and now that he had found him Steve hadn't even spoken with him yet. None of this would feel real until he did.

"Can't do that, Cap," Fury said. "Secure location. I gotta ask you though, he ever get hurt during the war? Heal too fast?"

Seeing where this was going, Steve thought about it. He had spent a lot of time thinking about it since finding Bucky alive, meticulously turning over moments in his mind for changes in him he might have missed caught up in his own new abilities. There had been close calls, but Bucky had managed to stay in one piece until that final mission and hadn't shown any sign he was stronger, faster, or different physically after Steve had brought him out of Zola's lab, no more than going to war would do to a man. 

"No. He was the same old Bucky." Except for the way he would look tired or haunted sometimes. Or the night he had kissed him. Steve could still taste the whiskey, and the warmth. Maybe that was one sign, that night. Bucky had downed a lot of it and hadn't been in the best condition after his imprisonment. He shouldn't have been half that coherent. 

"He says with the way his memory has been restored he's pretty sure he now remembers HYDRA giving him the serum. We're still looking at the results and it wasn't the same stuff you got, but it enabled him to survive. He wants us to reverse it. Says he wants it out of him."

"Is that possible?" Steve couldn't begin to imagine how dangerous that would be. Was that why SHIELD was being so accommodating all of a sudden? The chance at another landmark experiment? Worse things had been done in the name of the serum and what would they care if Bucky died?

"There are.... theories," Fury conceded, reluctantly.

"I want to see him," Steve said again. He had to talk Bucky out of this.

Far too calm, Fury shook his head. "Told you, not happening right now, Cap. The best we can do is tell him you're concerned. Maybe arrange a phone call."

That wasn't good enough. "He's my best friend..."

"Your best friend know how to do half the things the man in my custody does? Because I'm willing to bet you don't know the man you're asking for any better than we do."

The words cut, too close to what Steve was afraid of, but he did his best to ignore them. "Bucky shouldn't have to go through this alone."

Fury snorted. "He's alone in this whether you're there or not, Cap. You can't do this for him."

**

Fury was wrong. Steve couldn't share the weight of the blood on Bucky's hands, but he could remind Bucky that he knew the real him under whatever the Red Room had done and that he wasn't a killer. 

Steve researched "decompression" on the internet and learned it was a psychological strategy of the military that involved giving soldiers time together to recover from their shared combat experiences before reintegrating them into civilian life. It seemed the modern military had put a lot of thought into the effects of war and violence on a soldier's mind. That, at least, was one point in this new world's favor.

He didn't take Fury literally, but Natasha was the only person who could share in what Bucky gone through and the most likely person SHIELD would have keeping watch on him. Steve found her coming out of the gym in Avengers Tower one evening, but when he asked her if she knew where SHIELD had Bucky, she avoided the question.

"Right now I think you would only complicate things, Cap. The reminder that someone he loves saw what he's become would probably make it worse. Just give him some time."

She patted his shoulder and walked away, and though Steve didn't doubt she meant well, he could see she wouldn't help him.

He caught Barton in the kitchen rummaging through the refrigerator for a beer, but when Steve asked him if he had any idea where SHIELD was keeping Bucky he shrugged and said his clearance level wasn't high enough. 

Disappointment and the strain of the whole situation must have shown in Steve's face, because Barton popped open the one beer left and added, "After Loki got in my head, there was a part of me that wanted to hide so nothing could get to me like that again. Must be the same for him, only worse."

Bruce had his own opinion when Steve ran into him at SHIELD. He was bringing in a report on the radiation signature using the Cube on Bucky had left behind. 

"When I started living with the Other Guy, I didn't see the point of being around anyone—not anyone I could get close to. No matter what they thought they knew, they would never know the real me. The worst you've done, that always feels like the real you, Captain. I'm still working past that way of thinking."

If Bucky felt that way he wouldn't get past it unless someone showed him he was needed and that the worst things he'd done weren't his fault. With no other agents he trusted to help, Steve went to Tony as a last resort.

He found him in the lab in the tower, watching Bucky's metal arm—attached to nothing— _crawl_ across a tabletop toward a pencil at one end. The sight was both fascinating and disturbing. Stark had a headset on, barking orders into the mouthpiece.

"A little to the left. That's it, baby. Grab it. Grab it!" He turned to Steve. "This isn't half as kinky as it sounds." Metal fingers picked up the pencil as nimbly as a regular hand would. Tony motioned Steve to stand by the table and ordered into the mouthpiece, "Keep it going."

Steve had no idea what Tony was doing—teaching the arm to obey voice commands, it sounded like; he didn't hear anyone on the other end of the headset. Cold fingers brushed Steve's ass through his khakis and he jumped. His face went hot before anger took over. This was Bucky's _arm,_ not a toy to make a sick joke out of. He never should have told him about that kiss. 

"I came to ask for your help, but nevermind." Steve snatched the arm off the table. "Bucky needs this back."

Tony muttered "session over" into the headset and stripped it off. "Uh, unhand Sergeant Leather Pants' equipment." He took a look at Steve's face and pointed. "Oh God... it's too easy. Fury's letting me build a new one. You know your BFF doesn't need to wear that thing to control it? Think of all the fun if he had a sense of humor." When Steve didn't respond to that Stark waved a hand. "Fine. That makes two of you. Help with what?"

Steve put the arm down and told him, sure Stark would love another excuse to defy Fury and hack into the SHIELD system to find out one of their secrets just because he could. But to Steve's surprise, Stark actually turned serious.

"What are you expecting here? The guy's been through this massive thing and you, what, want to talk about the time the two of you made out?"

Steve wanted to insist that wasn't it at all, that he only wanted to see his best friend and help him in any way he could, but he couldn't deny the other thing wasn't a part of it. If he closed his eyes, he could feel the softness of Bucky's full mouth, the tickle of his stubble, and the light pressure of his thumb against his jaw. He could feel the hard muscle of the Winter Soldier's—Bucky's—body underneath him too and all the sensations that came with it. He just didn't see what was wrong with that. What was wrong with making the most of the impossible second chance they had been given?

He didn't want to explain all that to Stark, so he just said "nevermind" once more and walked out of the lab. It seemed everyone in this time was a shrink. Everyone knew what was best, how Bucky must feel, what Bucky needed, but they didn't understand

**

Steve should have guessed it from the beginning, but it didn't hit him until he saw Agent Coulson leaving SHIELD one morning in a brand new black sports car exactly who would have the security clearance to know where SHIELD was hiding something as important as the Winter Soldier. In fact, Steve couldn't think of anyone who would want the case more. Given Coulson's obsession with Captain America, he wouldn't pass up the chance to meet one of the Commandos and Steve's right hand man during the war. 

There wasn't any way for Steve to follow him on his bike without being seen, but Coulson didn't seem to care that Steve was tailing him and drove out of the city into an isolated area in the hills, taking a narrow twisty road to the top that would have made Steve motion sick in the old days. Coulson pulled up in front of a tiny house badly in need of yard work. If SHIELD was hiding Bucky here, Steve wondered how they kept him from escaping. There was too much space for him to run and no sign the house was secured in any special way.

Getting out of his car, Coulson beamed at Steve pulling up behind him on his bike. Apparently the novelty of seeing Captain America in the flesh hadn't worn off for him yet.

"Fury tell you where to find him, Captain?" 

Steve had the grace to be ashamed of himself, but the fact was the way Coulson worshipped Captain America, he would never suspect him of lying. Steve was determined to see Bucky no matter what it took, but this was the easy way, he told himself. There was no reason for this to get ugly.

"It's just Steve, Phil, but yeah." Coulson lit up that much more that he and Captain America were now on a first name basis. It made Steve feel that much worse, but he had to do this. "How is he?"

"He lets me watch Idol and Top Model marathons without talking over them or trying to steal the remote, so that's a plus." Coulson opened the trunk of his car and took out a black duffle bag and a cardboard box full of canned food and bottled water. "I'm teaching him the important modern custom of respecting another man's TV time."

"Does he talk at all?" Steve doubted Coulson came here just to babysit. There were still things they needed to know. The Red Skull, who had been behind Bucky's handlers these past few years, was still out there.

Coulson shrugged. "He grumbled a few things when some moron on the news said times were like the Depression all over again. _Saving Private Ryan_ came on and I got a story about the 107th involving him and some guys hiding in a village for three days, in the rain, with one can of rations each, where he had to creep from building to building and slowly pick off Nazis with his rifle. Pretty sure he had to walk uphill both ways and the number of Nazis will increase the next time I hear it. I told him no one's going to take him seriously as a lethal threat when he sounds like my grandpa." 

Steve wanted to smile, but his heart sank a little that Bucky talked about the 107th and not their time together taking out HYDRA bases. Some of those missions made for good stories. But of course Captain America and his squad were deemed too important to go without rations or to face the same hardships the regular soldiers had. 

Steve took the duffle bag and the food from Coulson. "I'll take these to him. You don't have to go in if bringing this is all you came for." 

Coulson saluted him. "Whatever you want, Cap... Steve." He pulled a folded wad of cash from his back pocket and handed that over too. "It's what Fury owes him from our poker game the other day. We're pretty sure he cheats."

Steve took the money. They must be desperate to win Bucky over if they were playing poker with him now. "He doesn't, but thanks, Phil." 

Steve left him there and went into the house. If he got Coulson in trouble over this he would take full responsibility with Fury later. 

The place was furnished like an actual house. Steve didn't know what else he expected, but it was tiny and clean, some sort of SHIELD safehouse, he supposed. He found Bucky sitting on the hardwood floor of the living room, his back against the wall and his knees drawn up. He looked awful. He clearly hadn't shaved since SHIELD had brought him in and his eyes were shadowed and red as if he hadn't slept in days and had spent too much time crying. With his thick beard and long hair and one arm missing, he hardly looked like the handsome, charming man Steve remembered at all.

He was laying out flashcards on the floor, each with a name and a date. Assassinations, Steve realized. Bucky was trying to construct a timeline. A can of soup with a spoon in it lay beside him, half-eaten cold, and the television was on, playing yet another program on the History channel about the war. It had distracted Bucky in the middle of writing and he stared at the screen without any sign he saw or heard Steve come in. 

Steve set the bag and the food and the money on the dining room table and approached him carefully, afraid of setting him off into a another panic with a sudden movement.

"Hey, Buck," he said in the overly gentle voice you used with the very sick or the injured. "Looks like they sent you some clothes and some food." He glanced at the can on the floor. "How about I heat that up for you?" It couldn't have been easy, eating from it without another hand to hold it with.

Bucky shook his head and pushed it aside without glancing away from the television. "They say Hitler ended up exterminating over twelve million people. Just marched a lot of them into the gas chambers to die."

"I know." Hearing the extent of it all years later had been a shock for Steve too. The truth about the death camps had only starting coming out around the time he and Bucky went into the ice. "Wish there was more we could have done."

Bucky pushed his hair out of his face and sounded tired. "I know what it's like to be dragged off someplace no one comes back from."

"Bucky, stop." Steve found the remote on the couch and turned the television off. The show was too depressing and he didn't want to hear Bucky say he should have died in that HYDRA camp, that it wasn't fair he had survived when so many others hadn't. Steve had wrestled with similar feelings and learned the modern world had a term for them—"survivor guilt." The modern world had a term for everything.

Steve lowered himself to his knees in front of him. "Fury says you needed some peace and quiet. Is that true? Is being here what you want?" 

Bucky nodded. "Working to put it all together. They only took me out of the freezer every few years. It's hard to keep straight what happened when."

Steve blinked. "They kept you frozen off and on? That's why you haven't aged?" Much anyway. The years had etched a few new lines around Bucky's eyes.

He nodded again. "They had to do something with me between missions. They would erase my memory first every time, but I lost my memory of who I was in the fall. Made me easy to program however they wanted, I guess." 

So not only did the Red Room make him their killing machine without Bucky knowing his own identity, he hadn't known what he had done from one mission to the next. Steve had never thought of Bucky as being vulnerable or in need of comfort or protecting from him before—the reverse had been such a constant between them for so long—but hearing all this, and imagining how awful all of it must be to remember, seeing him like this, Steve wanted to pull him into his arms until it didn't hurt half so much, if Bucky's nightmare of blood and confusion and exploitation ever could not hurt so much. 

He didn't though.

"Fury also told me you don't want the serum."

"I don't." The words had force in them.

"Come on, Bucky. You've seen me with it. It's nothing to be afraid of or worth risking your life trying to reverse."

Bucky ignored the last part. "You wanted it, Steve. HYDRA tied me to a table and did it to me when I was unconscious." He wrapped his one arm around his knees and seemed to shrink on himself. "Sometimes I think I feel it crawling under my skin, like Zola's in my body and I can't get away from him."

It was eerie, the way Bucky put it, like he was talking about something else, but it still wasn't worth dying over. Wasn't worth Steve losing him again, the selfish part of him wanted to say, but he didn't know how much that part of him counted with Bucky anymore. 

"So take what they did to you and use it against them. Take them down. Use whatever abilities they gave you to help people. Do good with it. I know you can."

Bucky gave a short laugh. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Steve. I don't even know what they're going to do with me. Fury wants to sweep the truth under the rug and tells me how 'invaluable' I could be, but I've heard that one before and he hasn't said what happens if I say no." 

Steve's blood went hot. Did SHIELD think they had the right to give Bucky ultimatums? Serve them or face God knew what for something he'd had no control over? 

" _Nothing's_ going to happen to you if you say no," Steve promised sharply. "I won't let it."

"Steve..." There was an unspoken 'please' in it, as if Bucky didn't have the energy to watch him get worked up over this, or didn't think he was worth it. It only made Steve more determined to get through to him.

"I mean it. I won't let anyone hold you accountable for something you had to be programmed into doing. Since you've been you again, you haven't shown any signs of loyalty to the enemy. You've cooperated. You've given information. You've submitted to SHIELD's tests and you haven't tried to escape. As far as I'm concerned the government and the American people owe you whatever they owe any other soldier we rescue from enemy hands." 

Bucky rubbed his face with his one hand as if Steve were making his head hurt. "What are you going to do?" he said tiredly, "March over to the Pentagon and start duking it out with people out back until they listen? People want blood, Steve."

It was strangely comforting how much Bucky sounded like himself at that moment—exasperated with yet another of Steve's refusals to be practical and let something go. But this wasn't them arguing over Steve getting a few bruises and a bloody nose for the second time in a week, it was Bucky's whole future as a condemned or free man and one he didn't seem to care much about. 

"It should be Schmidt's blood and everyone else behind anything you've done. The point is, if they want a Captain America they're going to have to do the right thing here."

"Steve..." Bucky rested his head back against the wall and took a deep breath to calm himself. "Don't."

"I'm serious."

"You're gonna give up being Captain America?"

Steve didn't know why Bucky found it so ridiculous. He had been willing to do it before, running off to Austria to get Bucky back. Worse, he could have been court-martialed and discharged and sent to prison, or executed if the Army so chose, but none of that had mattered at the time and it shouldn't now. Doing the right thing was what mattered if Bucky—who had died for his country—wasn't going to be treated fairly. 

"If I have to. It might make them listen. We could go off the grid just you and me. I never asked to be Captain America, I just wanted to do my part. I don't need a costume to do that. I can get your arm back from Stark's lab and get you out of here tonight."

The more Bucky watched him latch onto the plan and the principle of the thing, the more miserable he looked and the more he seemed to crawl with anxiety until he kicked the flashcards on the floor in frustration, yelling, "I can't deal with this right now. This didn't happen to you. Stop making it worse. Just..." he jerked his hand toward the door, "go."

Ignoring that, Steve inched closer on his knees, looked Bucky in the eye, and said in a gentler voice. "Losing you happened to me." 

He had hoped that would calm him, make him see that he wasn't the only one who would suffer if something happened to him, but all Bucky did was say matter-of-factly, "Looks like you're doing all right."

The words cut, both because they were entirely unfair and because Bucky apparently didn't care to look hard enough to see they weren't true. There was a difference between carrying on, trying to live up to what was expected of the man chosen for the serum, and being happy. Steve hadn't been truly happy since their years fighting together during the war. 

He tried not to let his hurt or anger show. "Waking up in a world that could hold a man responsible for what was done to him, that happened to me. It wouldn't be the world I fought for." 

Worn out now, Bucky sighed and ran a hand through his tangled hair. "You can't use me to hide because you don't like it here, Steve."

Maybe it was the tiny grain of truth Bucky hit on, the fact that it would be freeing to live a life of clear right and wrong away from the TV cameras and the confusion of image over genuine morality, but Steve was suddenly desperate and defensive. It wasn't using Bucky or any less about the principle of the thing. It was... It was wanting to cling to something that made sense in a world that didn't make sense. 

At a loss for how to explain it, all Steve could think of was Tony's half-serious advice the day they had brought Bucky into SHIELD. 

Sliding forward, and a little clumsily, Steve got a hand under Bucky's jaw and pressed his mouth to his. Bucky was stiff and caught off guard and his beard scraped, but he was warm and he was there and something in Steve crashed apart with relief, finally able to believe it. He just wanted...

Bucky made a weak sound against Steve's mouth. His forearm slammed into Steve's chest, shoving him back, and he got a hand on the wall and pushed himself to his feet. Then his hand was clamped over his mouth and he ran down the hallway toward the bathroom. The door slammed and Steve stood there listening to him coughing and throwing up.

Steve's heart sank all the way to his feet. He didn't know what he'd been thinking. Bucky had been drunk the night he had kissed him, probably didn't remember it afterward—he hadn't mentioned it again. He didn't want anything like this. He had wanted to be left alone. 

Doing the only decent thing he could, Steve left him to the quiet he had asked for.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky returned to SHIELD four weeks later. Steve came in with Thor and Tony after battling a super robot late one night to the sight of him clean-shaven, hair cut short again and metal arm back where it belonged, walking with Natasha toward the elevators where SHIELD must have given him someplace to stay on the upper levels. Whether because Bucky wasn't allowed out of the building or because he had no where else to go, Steve didn't know. When it came to asking after Bucky these past weeks, SHIELD liked to site various confidentiality rules as an excuse to tell him as little as possible. 

Bucky and Natasha were both dressed up. She in a short black dress that showed off even more than the leather suit she fought in and he in a shirt nearly the blue he had worn during the war that fit tightly enough to show off how muscular he was now. The modern, slim cut of his pants didn't hide much either and Steve was ashamed of where his eyes went as Bucky walked by. He was hurt too that Bucky didn't look his way.

Stark whistled. "Okay now I'm starting to see the attraction."

Thor's eyes followed Bucky as well, but only out of curiosity. "That is the Soldier of Winter I hear tales of?" He had been home on Asgard when the mess unfolded. "He carries great pain."

"Which Rogers wants to kiss better. Have to say though," Stark turned back to Steve, "your boy cleans up nice."

It was none of Tony's business what had happened in the safehouse, but anyone could see Bucky wasn't his 'boy'. He and Natasha had obviously gone out and the fabric of Bucky's shirt was wrinkled with a couple of buttons fastened crooked as though he had done them up in a hurry. Back in Brooklyn, Steve could always tell when Bucky had been with a girl. He would whistle obnoxiously the morning after and insist the world was perfect and that whatever-her-name-was was the girl for him. This Bucky hit the button for the elevator and turned to Natasha with a weak spark of warmth in his dead eyes. She had to stand on her toes to kiss his cheek, and instead of charming her or seducing her with his eyes like the old Bucky would have, he wrapped his metal arm around her and pressed her to his chest for a moment. Steve was surprised she let him, but Bucky seemed to bring out something softer in her, maybe because this was her own past looking back at her. 

Seeing it left a hollow ache in Steve, not only because he was afraid Bucky felt closer to her now, but because Steve could see real intimacy between them after what they had both been through, something he never quite had the chance to have with Peggy. Steve told himself he should be happy for them if being together was what they wanted. 

The elevator came and Bucky disappeared into it. Natasha turned back in their direction and Tony suddenly remembered he had a mission report for Fury and dragged Thor off with him before she could accuse him of being too nosy. Stark wouldn't admit it, but he was afraid of her. Failing to see how the three of them could be accused of anything when Bucky and Natasha were the ones hugging and kissing in a public place, Steve stepped out in front of her.

"You two have a date? Because I thought you and Clint..."

Natasha's eyes narrowed, letting Steve know he had said the wrong thing, but she decided not to take offense. 

"I took him out to eat. He hated every minute of it, said it made his skin crawl that all he could think about was how easy it would be to kill anyone there and slip away. So I took him somewhere quieter."

She didn't say where and Steve wasn't proud of the fact that his first thought was her bedroom. "Are you two...?" 

Natasha rolled her eyes as if she wanted to tell him to grow up, but she sighed. "James just needs a friend right now, Steve, and it's nice to meet the real him."

That only made Steve more ashamed of his stupid decision to kiss Bucky in that safehouse. A friend would apologize.

**

If Steve had trouble imagining Bucky as a master of stealth, he learned to accept it the next day. Bucky had apparently become a lot like a cat; if he didn't want to be found you weren't going to find him. Steve didn't know whether Bucky was avoiding him on purpose or if—as Natasha had said—it was too hard for him to be among people anymore. Either way, Steve searched SHIELD headquarters high and low for him without any luck. He might not have found him at all if the rain hadn't forced him to take his morning run inside up and down the neglected stairwells of the building. 

He happened to hear Bucky talking on a cell phone beneath a flight of stairs Steve must have taken half a dozen times without seeing him, the way he blended into the shadows. Whoever Bucky was talking to, it was all professional, targets and logistics and extraction points, all the new Bucky Steve didn't know, the Winter Soldier in his element laying out how a plan should go.

Bucky hung up and Steve hated that it took courage to approach him. He had a notebook on his lap and a pen in hand, scrawling away. He glanced up and Steve took the lack of anger or wariness in his face at the sight of him for encouragement.

"Can I sit?" It was stupid. Since when did he have to ask his best friend if he could sit next to him? Were they best friends anymore? Everything between them felt so fragile and wrong. 

Bucky mouthed a quiet "sure" without pausing with his pen. Steve sat and read over Bucky's shoulder. He was detailing a mission for SHIELD, putting on paper the same things he had laid out over the phone. 

"It's nice to see someone actually writing for a change," Steve said. "Seems all everyone does now is stare into a glowing screen of some kind."

"Yeah," Bucky muttered unhelpfully and turned the page to start a new one.

"Gonna be an agent?"

With a sigh that sounded far too tired, Bucky closed the notebook and set it and the pen aside. "No..." He pushed back the curl of hair that had fallen onto his forehead. He was so much more handsome without it long and hiding half his face. "Made a deal with Fury. SHIELD can pay me to train their agents, but as far as missions go we just... have a relationship. They provide the back up, I get the job done. I choose my missions and I don't answer to them."

He had asked for autonomy as an independent operative. That was smart. Bucky knew what his skills were worth and wouldn't want to be under anyone's control again. The danger though was that SHIELD could easily betray or abandon him in the field the minute he became inconvenient. The thought didn't sit easy, not just for Bucky's sake but because Steve didn't remember being this cynical or mistrusting. 

"What kind of missions?"

"Things left over from the Red Room for now, things I had a hand in or know about that are still out there. Thought it would help if I could make some of it right."

So no more talk about reversing the serum, then. Bucky had apparently taken to heart what Steve had said the last time about doing good with it. That was a relief. 

Bucky went quiet, staring at the wall. Steve could see his mind wandering back through the decades while Steve sat and tried to come up with how to go gracefully from talking about missions and eased consciences to saying he was sorry for attacking him with his mouth in the safehouse when it wasn't welcome and that he hoped they could forget about it and that Bucky knew Natasha wasn't the only person here for him. Bucky sighed again before Steve could say anything though and drew his knees up.

"I remember when wanting to kiss you was the worst thing I had to feel guilty about. Felt like a pervert."

Steve froze inside, startled by how hard he wanted to cling to the hope the words gave him, startled by all these feelings he didn't know he had locked up so tight. _But when I tried to kiss you, you..._ he almost blurted out. It sounded too demanding though and the quickest way to drive Bucky away if he couldn't talk about what he was feeling without Steve trying to pin him to something that could very well be in the past. 

"Why?" Steve asked instead, keeping his tone conversational but not pressing. "There's nothing wrong with..." 

Bucky didn't have the energy for delicacy. "Having a little queer in you? I know. But since no one else was giving you a chance it would have felt like taking advantage."

It was so matter-of-fact for an admission that hit Steve so hard. Bucky was talking about before the serum.

"So it wasn't just the new body?" It wasn't easy keeping the emotion out of his voice. It would have helped to have known at the time. But Steve told himself it might not matter anymore, that Bucky could simply be reminiscing over something he thought was stupid now.

Steve was half afraid Bucky wouldn't know what he was talking about, wouldn't remember, or would pretend not to. But Bucky shook his head as if he were tired of carrying so much around and just wanted to come clean however he could.

"That was an excuse." His eyes were still focused on the wall. "Or maybe I just needed a reason to go back out there into the fight."

Steve looked away, feeling self-involved in retrospect. He had been so caught up in being happy Bucky wasn't dead and in being so eager to get into the war himself he hadn't thought about what Bucky might have needed from him at the time or what it had taken for him to go back out there after being captured and tortured. Not half of what it must be taking him to go back out there now, Steve was sure, but he wasn’t going to make that mistake again. 

"You never let on." Not ladies man Bucky Barnes. If Steve had a dime for every time he'd heard Bucky with a girl or worse accidentally walked in...

Bucky snorted a laugh. "Back then? Come on. I tried not to think about it."

"Might have worked." Steve went warm inside imagining it, Bucky wrapping his scrawny body in his arms, confident and cocky the way he used to be, how amazing it would have felt to have the person Steve loved and admired so much strip his clothes off and look at that body with real desire... For the first time, Steve wished he could undo his transformation just for a little while to have that chance back.

"No. I thought about it, when I thought maybe you wanted the same thing. I could just see you, standing up and yelling at some idiots in the street about how what we were doing wasn't hurting anyone and how this was supposed to be a free country while they beat you until your brains were all over the sidewalk. Couldn't take that."

There was no point in denying things might have ended that way, but it hurt to think Bucky had been forced to give up something he wanted because Steve didn't know how to pick his battles. Yet at the same time, it was things like this that made him feel close to Bucky, the easy way Bucky understood putting something else before his own happiness. He could be cynical and bossy or shortsighted and a downright pain in the ass when he thought he was protecting you, but there wasn't much selfishness in him, only loyalty and warmth and a man who did right the best he knew how. Bucky wasn't like Stark, who had to wrestle with his ego at every turn and who hid the better part of himself behind an abrasive personality as though it were something to be ashamed of. Everyone here thought Steve was a model for how to be a hero, but Bucky could teach you a thing or two about how to be a friend. Steve wondered if maybe it wasn't his turn to be a better one.

"Besides," Bucky added with a weak bit of humor in his voice, tired of being serious, "the way you used to get winded after every little thing, you couldn't have handled me. You could barely handle me when I was bad."

All those sensations of Bucky's body on his in that alley a couple months ago rushed back—the strength of his thighs wrapped around his neck, the heat between them and all that pounding blood and adrenaline. It felt so intimate now, knowing Bucky's body like that. Steve had to force himself to push the want away. 

"I handled you right in here, didn't I?" 

Bucky gave him the faintest smirk and his eyes flicked to Steve's for just a moment. He may as well have teased him with a touch the way Steve felt it in a shiver of heat down his spine. 

The phone in Bucky's pocket rang. Fury wanted that mission plan. Bucky got up and the moment was gone, but Steve was just happy they could joke with each other again.

**

Being Captain America was beginning to feel like holding office. SHIELD's public relations department, which basically meant an extension of the government in one form or another, had all sorts of appearances lined up for him—Army recruiting offices where he was expected to encourage enlistment now that it was low, visits to victims of this or that tragedy that turned into photo-ops for the front page of the major news sites and that thing called Twitter, speeches to make about his feelings on gun control and this or that bill. Between all of it, Steve was beginning to feel a little too guided in what causes Captain America was supposed to be seen endorsing. He did his best to choose his own without getting himself accused of vigilantism again, or at the very least, made sure he was prepared with his own answers so he didn't have to rely on what was 'helpfully' scripted for him any time the media stuck a microphone in his face. He shocked people by refusing to be as backward as they expected. They couldn't believe a man from his time would support women in combat, as if there'd never been a Peggy or thousands of brave women like her during the war. They couldn't believe he would speak in support of the rights of queer people to serve their country openly or to marry either.  
Like Stark, so many of them couldn't imagine a human man who had lived and lost and felt things under that uniform, a man whose best friend had recently confided in him that he had hidden that part of himself out of fear. They probably couldn't imagine that their Captain America might have loved one of the commandos he had fought alongside. 

Steve came looking for Bucky at SHIELD a few days later, hoping he could drag him out for a while to help him at a veteran's fundraiser, hoping the company of other soldiers would be easier for Bucky than the regular public. An agent told Steve Bucky was in the gym, and Steve walked in to a commotion and a small crowd of people gathered around the sparring mat. 

Bucky was facing off with a junior agent, or better yet, brutally and mechanically putting to shame every move the poor kid had. He couldn't even get close to Bucky to land a hit and went crashing to the mat with a punch to the chest, crawling off with the wind knocked out of him to his friends on the sidelines. All of them had the same shamed, worse for wear look as he now did. 

"Your friend's been going through the best and brightest of SHIELD's future for the past hour, Captain," Bruce told Steve, watching with Thor. "I think part of the problem is that he terrifies them."

The truth about the Winter Soldier was supposed to be kept quiet, but Steve had heard the rumors and it boggled his mind to hear people whisper about Bucky—his warm and overprotective best friend since he was twelve—like he was the boogie man who came for you in the dark. They had heard Bucky had a double dose of the serum that made him twice as deadly. They heard the Red Room had trained him by making him wrestle bears in Siberia and that he had once infected a target with a deadly virus with a touch from his cybernetic arm. They heard he had been a hitman for the mob long before the war.

Bucky didn't relax and take a moment to catch his breath. He stayed coiled up and ready for the next contestant to come at him, but none of the junior agents had the courage. Bucky bit his lip, well aware they were scared of him. It bothered him, but he hid it and said as if he didn't care one way or the other, "You guys gonna bore me or can someone here give me a real fight?"

Natasha got up where she had been watching cross-legged on the ground, disgusted that these cowards were what the world would have to depend on one day. She stretched and Bucky had time to say "finally" before she ran for him. 

Steve didn't know what he expected, he was so used to seeing Bucky taking girls in his arms and dancing with them, charming them, casually leaning down to kiss them, but he was downright shocked to see him swing a fist at Natasha and attack a small woman like he meant to kill her. They went at each other hard. Bucky kneed her in the stomach and she kicked him in the balls. She jumped at him and kicked him in the chest and he grabbed her and threw her off him several feet across the mat. Pain didn't stop either of them for more than a heartbeat, and if anyone wanted to see Red Room training on display, there it was. She was enjoying herself, but more than that she was letting Bucky know she wasn't afraid of him. 

She spun in another kick and Bucky ended up grabbing her by her hair, yanking her around against his chest and forcing her down to slam her head against the mat. 

Steve never knew whether she would have let that stand for a win now that she had made her point or broken out of his grip and kept going. Clint lunged at Bucky and Natasha seemed to find watching the two of them more amusing, returning to her place beside the mat. Steve stood hoping this didn't turn into some ugly, knuckle-headed fight over her and end in a strike team of less easily-intimidated agents coming at Bucky with their guns drawn. Barton was good, but Bucky could destroy him if he wanted. 

Clint went for a hit to the stomach, only for Bucky to counter it and send him staggering back. Barton kept his feet and tried again and the two of them circled around each other, closed in when they saw an opening, stared each other down, and connected moves like a dance. Bucky's metal arm was quicker though and stronger and he seemed to know Barton's next move before he made it, all instinct translated into fluid movement. Bucky might have looked worn down since coming back to SHIELD, but the Winter Soldier had come alive now. He hit hard like he had with Natasha and kept Barton off balance. Steve couldn't help but be excited by how dangerous he was.

"I think you'll have to give it more than that, Clint," Natasha was shaking her head. 

Barton swore under his breath and stumbled from a hit to the chest. 

Thor frowned. "The Soldier of Winter is the one holding back. On Asgard, such a thing would insult another warrior."

"He has been holding back," Bruce agreed. "Better talk to him, Captain. He'll get himself hurt out on the field like that."

It was true. Bucky blocked with his left, but mostly struck with his right hand—the one that didn't feel like being struck by a moving vehicle. He and Clint ended up throwing each other down on the mat, grabbing at clothes and limbs and struggling, Bucky's long legs tangled with Clint's, but even holding back, Clint couldn't quite match him. Bucky kept throwing him off and twisting out of every hold Clint tried to put on him. As he watched, all Steve could think about was pinning Bucky under him against his mattress at home, his hands the ones grabbing at Bucky's clothes, pulling them off. 

Steve's face got hot and the rest of his body followed. 

Barton had the sense to know when to quit. Climbing off Bucky, he rose out of breath to his knees. 

"You get this one, Barnes, but next time..."

Bucky kicked him in the butt with his boot. "Yeah we'll see." 

Clint gave him the finger, and that little exchange was the only thing to gave away that the match had been friendly. 

Barton left with Natasha and Bucky stretched on his back on the mat, arms and legs splayed, shirt clinging. He rolled his head toward Steve and his eyes were on him. 

"You wanna give it a go?"

Steve's mouth went dry. It felt like a taunt, though he didn't think Bucky would do that to him. But the way he was lying there, the thought of being on top of him, underneath him, feeling him move and the blood and heat pounding through him again... An image flashed of them moving together in bed, naked, and Steve's dick reared up in the tight blue pants of his uniform. He grabbed the shield off his back to hide it, shaking his head, red-faced.

"I... uh... have a report to give to Fury," he faltered. 

It was embarrassing how fast he darted out of there, hiding his erection behind the shield. Damn it, he had to stop thinking about Bucky that way.

He almost ran into Tony in the doorway. Steve hadn't realized he had come in to watch. He pushed past him, but Stark followed him out.

"Okay, sex eyes are progress, but if you want to have your way with him you realize you'll have to devise a plan to get him alone? Unless he likes an audience, in which case-"

God Steve wished Stark would drop it. "Would you just..." He didn't want to 'have his way' with Bucky, he wanted... "I'm... I don't even know if that's what he wants."

Stark shrugged. "So tell him Fury will only let him leave SHIELD headquarters if he's released into your custody, and that if he wants out of here you'll have to take him home with you. Gratitude might get you in his pants. Hey, it'd work for me if I was stuck here."

Stark still thought this was funny. "You want me to lie to him and use his situation to my advantage just like his captors did to him for the past seventy years?"

"Ok, fine. Tell him you want him to come over so you can draw him in the mask and only the mask. Have you ever seen _Titanic_?" 

Steve had, but he didn't want to talk about this anymore, or think about it. He wished he knew how Bucky had managed to do such a good job of pushing these feelings aside for so many years. Steve had lived with him and never known, and here Steve couldn't even hide them in public.

"I'm trying to be a friend," he told Stark. "I think he could use a few people on his side who don't want anything from him."

Stark gave him a critical look, as if Steve was one of his fancy inventions that wasn't working the way it was supposed to and he had just pinpointed the reason. "Would you even know what to do with him if you got him where you wanted? Trust me, the guy looks so depressed I wouldn't count on him for helpful instructions."

Steve's face went hot all over again. He wasn't an idiot; he had a basic idea of what two men did together, but ... No. He looked at Stark, hoping for some useful advice this time that didn't involve tricking Bucky or making an idiot of himself.

Tony patted him on the shoulder and started to walk away. "Hey, don't look at me. Google's your friend."

**

Steve felt worse about listening to Stark this time around than he did about kissing Bucky in the safehouse. That was at least an upfront miscalculation. This felt like plotting against Bucky while he might be alone shaking with a nightmare at that very moment. But Steve told himself it wasn't really about Bucky, not all of it anyway. If he had to suffer all this desire he couldn't control he wanted to know what exactly his body desired.

That evening, feeling as though he were committing some horrible act of espionage looking where he shouldn't, Steve typed "men kissing" into the computer in his apartment. Hundreds of pictures and little movies came up of shirtless men, handsome men, men unashamed of their love or lust for each other, running their hands over each other's bodies as they devoured each other's mouths. Steve remembered Bucky's hands on his bare chest as he had kissed him with that kind of hunger. He remembered Bucky's hand moving for his cock too and the intensity of his eyes.

Getting braver, Steve typed in "men fondling each other." Apparently the phrase was "handjob" now and a "blowjob" no longer had anything to do with an airplane. 

Those pictures made his face red and his cock hard. There were videos too. He watched men get on their knees, take out each other's cocks, lick each other and greedily swallow each other down. Seeing it was a whole lot different than hearing your fellow soldiers brag about what they had gotten some girl to do. Steve closed his eyes and thought of Bucky kneeling between his legs under the desk, pictured his softly curving mouth around his dick and a look in his eyes that dared Steve to deny it was the best thing he had ever felt. Bucky had amazing eyes. Steve could admit that now. 

Steve got even braver, or maybe more honest and entered "gay sex" into the search field.

He had never seen the words "anal" or "prostate" so many times in his life. He didn't even know men had a spot inside them that could do those things. There were detailed guides about how to go about it, people writing into message forums to talk about it—their favorite positions and what their partners did to have them begging for it. Apparently when done right the person on the receiving end got the best part of the deal, and _that_ was a riveting piece of information. 

There were videos of the act as well, whole catalogues of outright pornography there for the clicking. Steve clicked and watched, his stomach tight with an irrational fear SHIELD had installed surveillance on the machine and would burst through the door and take away the uniform and the shield at any moment. He tried to remind himself that it was a new time, and whatever you could say about the modern world there was an active interest in scrubbing the shame and criminality from what two men might want to do with their bodies. 

All the same, maybe he should call Bucky over anyway, see what a master spy knew about keeping a low profile on htis thing, ask for a few pointers in plain English from one guy who still remembered all the gossip that came from neighbors sharing telephone lines to another. Maybe Steve could cook a candlelight dinner and they could get hot under the collar learning about hard drives and gateways. Was that how Stark wanted him to go about it?

Or maybe Steve should invite Bucky over to watch the game, so they could actually watch the game, and stop this. 

He couldn't though. He clicked and clicked. He watched men bend each other over furniture, push each other onto beds, stroke each other and thrust into each other hard. Men in tuxes and fatigues and leather outfits and women's lacy underwear. 

He got so achingly hard watching men pound into each other he quit the browsing program and got up. When Bucky said he had felt like a pervert wanting him before the serum did he mean any of these things? Spreading his small body out on the bed and taking him like one of his girls? Kissing him everywhere until Steve yelled that he didn't need to be babied and to just _give it to him_ already. Bucky would have wanted to be careful with him. Steve knew that. 

Hot all over, Steve lay down on the bed. He peeled his boxers off and wrapped a hand around his cock, wondering how Bucky's cock would feel in his hand and what kind of sounds he would make, if he would be all control or let go with him. All those things in all those videos ran through Steve's head as he stroked himself. He imagined pushing Bucky against the wall of some dirty back alley building, unbuttoning the pants of that dress uniform Bucky had looked so handsome in and dropping to his bony knees to say goodbye the way he should have. He imagined them on one of those missions during the war when it was just the two of them, moving the damn rifle out of the way Bucky laid between them when they slept. He imagined curling close around Bucky's body, sliding a hand in his pants and covering Bucky's mouth with the other to muffle the sounds Steve wanted him to make as he got Bucky hard with his touch and made him come whimpering his name. 

He imagined dirtier things, parading himself on stage to raise money for the war effort in a completely different type of show, stripping off the costume piece by piece and holding Bucky's eyes in the audience, watching the heat come into them the more of his body he revealed, all Steve needed to keep going, to thrill in what should have been degrading. 

The ache in his balls building, Steve wanted more than his fist on his cock, too desperate to come for shame now. He opened his legs and explored himself with his other hand, fingers trailing along the crack of his ass and brushing the opening there. Had Bucky ever been touched in these places? Did he want to be—by him? It felt so daring, learning the secret, sensitive parts of his own body—the body SHIELD or the government thought belonged to them in one way or another. He wondered if anyone had imagined their precious Captain America doing or liking this. Steve licked a finger and eased it inside himself, grip tightening around his cock and his head spinning with the idea of a spot inside a man could send pleasure like lightning through his body.

Closing his eyes, Steve imagined himself taken prisoner by the Red Skull and injected with something that neutralized the serum. He was left in a dark room, stripped naked and helpless and bound with leather straps to a cold table like in one of those fetish videos, on his back with his knees bent and open wide, exposing him. The Red Skull wanted him humiliated, wanted whoever came to rescue him to find him like this, wanted the nation flooded with photos and images so everyone would know what kind of man Captain America really was under the uniform. He imagined Schmidt leaving him alone with the Winter Soldier for a guard, nothing more than a shadow in the corner, his face uncovered, rifle in his hands, but no recognition in his eyes. 

Steve imagined the Soldier's eyes on him, constant and unblinking like he couldn't look away, cold blue eyes tracing every muscle and line of his vulnerable body as the Soldier struggled with his desire for him. Steve's strokes sped up and he imagined turning to him.

"You look like someone I knew," he would tell him. "Someone I failed because I couldn't save him. I think you should punish me for it."

The Winter Soldier didn't have much reason to refuse, didn't have much of a conscience. He stepped around the table and unzipped his black pants. Steve's hands weren't free to get his cock out, but when the Soldier pushed the flushed head of it between his lips Steve lifted his head and let him thrust into his mouth until the Winter Soldier was good and hard and the cold, even rhythm of his breathing started to quicken and waiver. Steve pictured him pulling away abruptly and then he was standing between Steve's legs, long hair falling over pale skin as he thrust into him, just _taking_ him rough and raw the way he fought without any of Bucky's gentleness or fear of the consequences. 

Steve came shuddering, so flushed he felt feverish. Part of him felt guilty for even imagining using Bucky this way, but it was only a fantasy.

**

"Something wrong with your aim today?"

They were in SHIELD's indoor shooting range. Steve didn't know whether Bucky had been aware of him watching. He had learned a long time ago not to break his concentration when he had a gun in his hand—back in the war Bucky wouldn't even answer you if you tried talking to him while he was focused on the scope of his rifle—but after Bucky failed at five targets in a row, Steve had to say something.

Bucky glanced at him over his shoulder, lowered the gun, and fixed him with a harder look when Steve immediately dropped his eyes. He knew he had a guilty look on his face after last night for the number of times he had gone back to the computer only to return to bed with more fantasies and for the fact that he had purchased... personal supplies... early this morning, but Steve didn't remember the old Bucky's stare being so piercing. 

Bucky chose not to acknowledge whatever he saw though and turned away.

"What are you talking about?"

"I've been standing here for five minutes, and I've walked by here I don't know how many times in the past hour. You've been hitting arms and legs, but haven't made a kill shot. It's not like you to miss."

Bruce was right. Bucky would get himself hurt if guilt made hold back in a fight or hesitate with his gun and Steve wasn't convinced Bucky cared enough about whether he lived or died out there to see the problem. He had been suicidal a few weeks ago. 

"I don't miss," Bucky said. "But some people like their targets brought back alive. It takes practice, aiming for the shoulder or a knee cap. Gotta work against my instinct."

A clean shot to the head, that had been Bucky's style during the war long before the Russians trained him to be their killing machine. They never talked about it, but Steve had seen the thrill Bucky got whenever he blew some HYDRA soldier's brains out.

"When are you leaving?"

Bucky pushed a button and another target popped up. "Three weeks. They're sending Natalia along, but I trust her."

To have his back if SHIELD decided to betray him or to not let him die like Steve had? Both, probably. "Promise you'll be careful? In advance."

"Sure." 

Steve couldn't tell whether it was sincere, sarcastic, or just to pacify him. Bucky raised his gun again, eyes on the target and everything else in the room might as well have disappeared, Steve included. Bucky fired, hit the target in the calf, fired again and hit the upper arm in a way that would have made a real enemy drop a weapon. His forehead was creased and he bit his lip hard, concentrating. Both times, his hand jerked at the last moment, refusing to let himself go for the brain or the heart like he clearly wanted to.

Steve couldn't help but be proud of him. He might have made the beginnings of a figher and a sniper out of Bucky and the Red Room might have made him a dangerous killer, but Bucky was the one trying to fight through all that and make himself a hero. 

On impulse, Steve took a chance and put his arms around Bucky from behind. It was only meant to be a harmless hug, but Bucky's metal hand locked around his forearm as if he'd startled him and Steve thought maybe he shouldn't have touched him at all. 

"What's that for?" Bucky's voice was harsh. Steve tried not to take it to heart.

"I just miss you."

"The old me?" 

"Any you."

Bucky's grip relaxed, but he didn't let go. He held Steve there and Steve could feel how rigid he was. Getting braver, he rested his chin on Bucky's shoulder, and when Bucky still didn't let go, breathed him in. Bucky smelled like whatever hair product he used now, gun oil, and warmth. Steve wasn't sure if he imagined it, but he thought Bucky leaned into him just a little bit. He had a hard time not thinking about pushing the collar of his shirt out of the way and kissing the side of his neck. It was funny how deep you could bury urges like this when the cost was too high, but once they became something you could have they were suddenly all you thought about.

Bucky twisted out of his hold, more nervously than rough. "There's people around..."

People around, not 'don't touch me.'

Steve turned and saw various SHIELD agents walking by, along with Stark and Banner. 

Tony stopped in the doorway and Steve couldn't stand back from Bucky fast enough. "Oh for God's sake, Rogers." Stark pointed to the supply closet behind him across the hall. "Helpful advice...? Take him in there."

"What the hell's in there?" Bucky demanded.

"Guns. Ammo. Things that excite you. Rogers here will give you a tour."

Bucky folded his arms. He wasn’t stupid. He knew when someone was talking over his head. "Why the fuck do I need a tour? I've seen the inside of a closet before." 

"You don't," Steve got in before Stark could make the obvious joke and assume Bucky was too old to get it. Steve wasn't about to drag Bucky in a closet anyway like... like the old Bucky would have done with any willing woman in the building. "Howard Stark founded this place. Remember him? Tony here just thinks everyone's as interested in seeing every little nook and cranny as he is. He'd show you the heating system if you let him."

Minus the nervous laugh at the end, Steve thought it was a pretty good save, but Tony looked disgusted and Bucky just looked like he needed to be spared from all this.

"This is ridiculous," Tony gestured between the two of them. "New life, changing times. You two should be all ov-"

Steve cleared his throat. The guy had no idea when to shut up. "You know what, Bucky?" He cut Stark off. "You were busy. I was on my way to talk to Fury and Stark here," Steve said it sharply so Tony got the message this wasn't a game, "is going to leave you alone." He patted Bucky on the shoulder. "Good shooting. Carry on, Sergeant."

Bucky stared at him in disbelief, then turned away, biting his lip and fighting something down. Hurt, Steve realized too late. He must have thought Steve was trying to show off dismissing like that him in front of someone as famous as Tony Stark. Steve didn't remember Bucky being so sensitive, but after being made to serve as someone's loyal tool for seventy years Steve could see why he would be when it came to the implication he took orders easily.

Stark was too busy rolling his eyes to notice, yelling as he walked away, "Fine, but I didn't know our national icon _was a coward!_ "

Steve wanted to yell back that not everything was about getting someone into bed, that when you loved someone you treated them with more respect than that, but that would give too much away with Bucky right there and Bucky had already taken off after Stark. 

"What did you say?" Steve might have hurt him, but Bucky evidently wouldn't let an insult against him stand 

Steve caught up to him before Bucky took a swing at Tony and brought a whole flurry of armed SHIELD agents down on himself. He still had his gun in his hand. 

"Come on, Buck. Let's just..." Steve had no idea what he was about to say. His Avengers communicator went off. They had another robot attack on their hands. "I gotta suit up," Steve said instead, and didn't have much choice but to hurry off.

**

Running to get the uniform on didn't take more than ten minutes, but apparently he should have been faster. Steve had just made it outside to board the quinjet with Thor and Bruce when Bucky—flanked by Natasha and Clint—came stalking out of the building, his phone in hand.

Natasha was trying to reason with him. "He pisses us all off, James, but he's useful. We need him in one piece."

"Without any bullet-shaped holes in his head," Clint put in.

They were talking about Stark. Dread sat like a brick in the pit of Steve's stomach even before Bucky marched up to him and thrust his phone in Steve's face.

"What _the fuck_ is this?" Bucky didn't raise his voice very often, but he was livid now, or hurt—it was starting to look more like hurt again. "You and your friends wanna have your little jokes, then fine, but leave me out of them. I'm not in the mood, Steve."

Steve read what was on the screen, an e-mail from Tony. _Hey Barnes, after the battle Rogers wants you bathed and brought to his tent._ At the end of it, Stark had put Steve's address. 

Thoroughly mortified, all Steve could do was stare at the shield in his hand the blue of his iconic costume, feeling like the furthest thing from a national hero. He was torn between wanting to bury his face in his hands and—like Bucky—wanting to get his hands around Stark's throat and demand what the hell that message even meant. Part of him wished Bucky would just shoot him and get it over with.

Bucky was waiting for an answer and his face hadn't softened any. Clint suddenly felt an urgent need to go wait with Bruce and Thor and Natasha fixed Steve with a look before joining them—one that either said 'work this out and keep your head on the fight' or that she wouldn't think too highly of him if he hurt 'James' now. Steve wouldn't think too highly of himself either.

He thought fast, thought about how saying he had no idea what Stark was talking about would come across as 'I couldn't possibly want anything like that with you' and about what Bucky would think of him if he found out through more of Stark's antics that Steve had been kissing and telling to Stark behind his back. 'I thought you were dead at the time' wouldn't cut it for an apology.

Steve dug in the pouch at his belt and pulled out his apartment keys, settling on the most honest lie he could think of. "Stark must have overhead me saying that if you still want quiet I don't understand why you don't come stay with me. I have a place in Brooklyn." 

He held out the keys. Bucky stared at them a moment and the worst part was that he actually looked ashamed for yelling at him as if he should have known better that Steve couldn't possibly have done anything to deserve it. He took the keys though and enough weight lifted inside Steve he was actually looking forward to going out leading the fight if he had his best friend back to come home to after.

**

Between the mission and the debriefing afterward, Steve didn't get home until after midnight. There wasn't a sight that could have relieved him more than Bucky curled on the couch with the remote next to him where he must have gotten sleepy watching television. Steve had been afraid he would change his mind about staying with him, but a small bag of Bucky's things lay neatly against the living room wall and everything in the kitchen had been put away. Bucky had never been a slob, but the new him evidently couldn't stand dirty pans in the sink and the dishwasher half emptied. 

Bucky lifted his head the minute the front door creaked, hand under the couch cushion where he must have stashed a gun. Steve made a point of lingering in the light of the doorway long enough for Bucky to recognize him. He had to remember not to startle him. He had to remember that it had only been a few weeks and that if Bucky was going to stay here he would need a lot of consideration.

"It's just me. Go back to sleep."

Without a word, Bucky let his hand fall and laid his head down again, curling up tighter against the back of the couch. Steve hoped they could talk more in the morning.

He changed out of the uniform, showered, and and went right to bed. He woke in the dark to the sound of his bedroom door opening and Bucky standing hesitant in the doorway. His hair was a mess as though he'd been tossing and turning for hours now.

"Can I sleep here?" he asked when he saw Steve was awake.

Tiredness gone just like that, Steve immediately pulled the covers back. He had never seen Bucky so awkward.

"You know you didn't have to ask."

Bucky bit his bottom lip as though overwhelmed by the empty half of the bed Steve was offering. What did he expect? That Steve would make him sleep on the floor? Bucky padded over barefoot though and slid under the covers, settling stiffly on his back and folding his arms outside of them. In the dark, he looked nervous and especially pale. He needed to get outside more.

"Thought maybe you wouldn't want to be that close to me. You've been acting weird. It's one thing to say the things I did weren't my fault, but another to wanna be around me."

 _You're the one who threw up,_ Steve almost said, but that was childish and Bucky deserved patience right now. 

"...You can't even look me in the eye."

Steve had the urge to bang his head against the headboard. Was that what Bucky thought? That he was repulsed by him now because of the things in SHIELD's mountain of files?—the files that detailed how Department X had tossed Bucky in a freezer for years at a time when he got too difficult to control, exploited him, tortured him, put forth an organized effort to keep him from his own memories by forcing their way into his mind with their sick programming every time the real Bucky tried to fight his way out. God, how had Steve made such a mess out of getting him back? They were supposed to be happy... 

"It's not that..." Steve turned and made a point of looking him in the eye. He wasn't sure 'I feel terrible that I can't control my lust for you when you're obviously in a lot of pain' would help right now, but he wanted Bucky to know the part of the truth that mattered. "It's hard to watch you suffer like this and have no idea what the hell I can do to help."

Sighing as if he didn't have the faintest clue either, Bucky slid his arms under the covers and pulled them up to his chin.

"Cold?" That was the only reason they had ever ended up in bed together before. Steve had missed it during the war, but he told himself at the time it was because the burden of leadership got heavy and what he missed was the safety of being the one taken care of. Back then, he had told himself a lot of things.

"Nah," Bucky shook his head. "I get... disoriented when I wake up somewhere I don't recognize and I want to panic. It takes me hours to calm down. Thought if I came in here with you the worst that would happen is I would think I was back home before the war." 

Steve smiled that he was still home to him, even though he would have been small and skinny back then and probably keeping Bucky up with one of his hacking coughs during the night. 

"And that everything that happened was all a dream?"

Bucky turned to face him in a rustle of covers. "Most of the time I'm afraid to go to sleep at all, like I'm gonna wake up and it'll be ten years later or something and all this will be gone too."

"Years gone by in a blink? Now that I understand."

"Yeah?" Bucky looked at him through his thick lashes. "Thought you might."

Steve was about to tell him how SHIELD had tried to trick him with the baseball game and the nurse dressed in old-fashioned clothes when Bucky dealt him a weak kick under the blankets.

"Ow," Steve yelled though he barely felt it. Bucky's old smirk wasn't there, but Steve kicked him back anyway and got a half-hearted elbowing in the ribs for the trouble and the next thing he knew he was on top of Bucky trying to pin his arm down. Bucky let out the faintest huff of a laugh and twisted to get a leg free so he could knee Steve off him. He got his metal arm between them instead and shoved Steve flat on his back. Steive hit his arm on the nightstand and—disappointed he didn't get a real laugh when he yelled in real pain this time—Steve punched Bucky in the chest only for Bucky to immobilize his arm by throwing himself on top of him full-length. It wasn't quite sparring or the Winter Soldier's deadly moves, just the ghost of the dumb kind of wrestling they used to get up to as kids.

His arm bent and pinned between them, Steve bent his knees and planted his feet further apart to get the leverage to throw Bucky off. He only brought Bucky's body closer between his thighs though, warm and heavy against Steve's chest and his cock and everywhere in between, and the innocence of the whole thing fell apart in a heartbeat. 

They both went still, Bucky's arms around Steve's waist where Bucky held him down and his breath fanning warm against the side of Steve's neck. Steve could feel Bucky's heart pounding and his cock throbbing too. Steve's own cock throbbed and he wanted to tangle a hand in Bucky's hair, pull him to his mouth for a kiss, and grind their cocks together, ache to ache, to satisfy every urge that had ever been denied them. But he didn't want to risk another catastrophe like that stupid kiss weeks ago.

Inching his trapped arm free, Steve got his hands under Bucky's arms and carefully eased him up onto his elbows where he could look at him.

It was dark, but the lines of Bucky's face were still so handsome and Steve desperately wanted to slip a finger between his open lips to feel how soft they were and the wetness of Bucky's mouth inside. His blue-grey eyes were still flat and dead though and Steve just wanted to fuck the light back into them. He pushed some of the hair back from Bucky's forehead and stroked a hand down one side of his face.

"Do you still want...?"

He trailed off. Bucky's face crumpled, strangled by emotions he was trying to hold in. One of them was shame, Steve could see. He crawled off Steve, huddling against the headboard, knees drawn up and his arms around them. He tugged the blankets over his lap too to hide the fact he was aroused. Steve had never thought he would see Bucky like this.

"Bucky..." Steve laid a hand on his shoulder and felt him stiffen.

After a minute, Bucky said, "I can't just kill all those people and get what I want. I gotta pay."

So that's what this had been about? Not Bucky's feelings for him being yet another thing lost in the past, but some crusade of self-denial because Bucky thought he deserved to suffer? Steve didn't know whether that made the situation better or worse.

"I think you've been paying." You didn't have to know the old Bucky to see the strain on him now. It was there in his face, the lack of sleep, the haunted eyes that knew no peace.

Bucky was quiet for another minute, then he slid out of the covers. "I'm just gonna take a cold shower. Go back to sleep."

He padded barefoot to the bathroom and closed the door. Steve sat up and turned the bedside lamp on. There was no way he could go back to sleep now.


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky couldn't stand cold water. It reminded him of that damn HYDRA camp where Zola's guards would dump buckets of it on him to revive him whenever he passed out from the pain of being cut and burned so Zola could write down how fast he healed. It reminded him—now that Bucky remembered—of waking out there in the blue-white emptiness on the ice, wet and in excruciating pain from the fall and barely alive, waking to a dozen unfamiliar people in uniforms crowding in on him and yelling at each other about getting him to the lab and getting a blood sample to see whether he had the serum.

Bucky was so fucking sick of the goddamn serum, and Steve wondered why he wanted it out of him. 

Those memories should have frozen any desire to be touched ever again right out of him, but he stood under the cold spray aching and hard with the sensation of Steve's body on his. Bucky thought about wrapping a hand around his dick and getting rid of the problem the old-fashioned way, thinking about all the girls he'd lifted onto his hips and fucked in the dark against some dirty building or better yet had naked in bed when Steve wasn't home and how much fun they were—girls whose mothers were quick to let their daughters go dancing with the 'nice young man who took such good care of his sick brother'. Thinking of them only made Bucky angry though and he switched the water to lukewarm. They all thought they were as good as getting away with murder back then having sex for a little while. If that was innocence, he wished he'd known it at the time to appreciate it more because he could never have it back now. 

He wanted to hit something. He wanted to huddle in the corner of the shower and sob. These days he felt like he was walking on a knife's edge and if he wasn't careful he would just lose it. He had tried to do the right thing. He had served his country and stood by his best friend until the end. What the fuck had he ever done to deserve the memories in his head and the blood on his hands now?

Bucky slammed the water off and wrapped a towel around himself, too wound up to care anymore whether his dick wanted to behave or not.

Steve was standing right there when Bucky came out of the bathroom. He had straightened up the covers and put on a shirt over his boxers. Bucky didn't know what else to do but go to him.

"You have no idea how hard this is, Steve."

He let his head fall onto Steve's shoulder and Steve's arms came around him, rubbing a hand down his back. It was pathetic to think that after Natalia this was only the second person to hug him in seventy years. Not that he deserved any better.

"I know you don't have to do this alone." The warmth in Steve's voice and his big hand on Bucky's bare skin and the press of his solid body weren't helping Bucky fight the arousal any and he pulled back. 

He wasn't prepared for the way Steve's eyes moved over his chest and arms, the way he tried to pull his gaze away but couldn't seem to keep from looking.

"What?" 

Bucky thought it might be the mess of faint scars or the way his metal arm gave way to skin and more faint scars at his shoulder, until Steve's cheeks went pink and he shyly touched a fingertip to the well-defined muscle at Bucky's stomach.

"The serum give you that body?"

Bucky swallowed. He hadn't been this built the last time Steve had seen him without his clothes and Steve liked it, tracing the lines of muscle with his eyes like he wanted to touch. Bucky wanted to throw a shirt on. His body wasn't anything worth admiring; it was living proof of how dedicated Department X had made him to being their weapon, of the something in him that collaborated.

"That's just training. SHIELD can't give me a straight answer on what the hell the serum did to me other than keep me alive somehow. You're still stronger. I know that. They say it's probably broken down in my system by now, but can't say for sure." Bucky shrugged, sick of SHIELD and their tests and 'monitoring procedures' and fighting down panic in their lab. They had sedatives for that, but the panic only came back double when they wore off. "Thought science was supposed to be advanced." He turned back into the bathroom. "Gonna put some clothes on."

He got three stops before Steve called after him. 

"You know you're being ridiculous. Not because you won't sleep with me—that's your choice—but for punishing yourself."

Bucky turned back around. "Maybe..." It came out weak. If he wasn't still trying to cope with the reality of stasis freezers and memory wiping and the fact that he and Steve were seventy years in the future he would have been amazed they were talking about the two of them like this at all.

Steve stepped closer, all warmth and golden like sunlight and so fucking forgiving and innocently eager for him as if the piles of bodies and the rivers of blood meant nothing, in this new America where not a god damn thing would happen to either of them if Bucky just threw Steve on the bed and kissed the hell out of him like he'd always wanted to. This had to be someone up there testing him, setting his greatest temptation before him to see whether he would refuse and harbor remorse genuine enough to know he wasn't worthy. 

God, he was losing it.

"I'm just saying," Steve stopped less than a foot from him, "If you still want this, then I'm right here and I want it too."

Bucky drew a long slow breath and it wasn't Steve he was looking at, but a losing battle. He'd never been good at resisting temptation. 

"You know I'm not the same person..." 

Steve took another step and said so patiently. "Nobody said you had to be. Just because you meant a lot to me before doesn't mean I can't want you the way you are now."

"Yeah?" Maybe SHIELD really had put an illusion of Steve in his head; Steve was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.

Steve smiled, a smile that got under Bucky's skin and made it prickle. "It was pretty exciting watching you wipe the floor with Barton, for one thing..."

Barton was a good guy, but it had been a long time since Bucky had been able to impress Steve with anything other than his aim. "Oh you liked that, huh?" 

"A little." 

Closing the last few inches between then, Steve's hands went to either side of Bucky's waist, watching his face for his reaction. Bucky looked up at him and before he knew it his hands found their way to Steve's shoulders. Maybe he was weak-willed, between serving the KGB and giving into this, but if there was a judgment day one more transgression wasn't going to make much difference on the scales and he couldn't take not having this anymore.

"You made your point." His arms slid around Steve's neck and he pressed in close. "Now kiss me."

Steve's eyes lit up, but he pretended to hesitate. "I don't know, are you sure you won't throw up this time?"

Bucky had the grace to look down. That wasn't fair. "Only if you get sappy."

The beautifully stupid look on Steve's face came damn close. He leaned down and when his mouth met Bucky's he didn't have to ease Steve into it this time. Steve kissed him deep and hungry right off, one arm tightening around his waist and hauling their bodies together, the other hand tangling in Bucky's damp hair. Before Bucky knew it, Steve was grinding his hips into him and walking him backward toward the bed.

They sat at the foot of it. Steve's tongue was in his mouth and his hands were all over him, stroking Bucky's jaw and the side of his neck and over his good shoulder and the muscular chest Steve liked so much now. Steve's fingertips stroked through the dark hair there and Bucky's head spun and his blood pounded so fast his fucked-up brain didn't know what else to do but interpret all the anticipation and urgency as panic. 

His chest seized up, his skin clammy with the wrong kind of heat. He pushed away from Steve before he lashed out on instinct. 

"Stop for a minute."

Flushed and breathing hard, Steve took his hands off him as fast as his enhanced reflexes would let him. "What is it?" It must have been bad, for Steve to look so alarmed. 

Bucky wrapped his arms around himself so he didn't start shaking. He tried to slow his breathing by reminding himself this was Steve and he wanted his hands on him.

"Still getting used to feeling things, I guess."

Steve was watching him carefully "You mean like... desire?" 

Bucky shook his head. "No. Feelings." He took another breath. "It's the way they got inside my head. Anything that gets too close, I wanna fight it off or... hold it back and examine it to make sure it's really me." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "It's hard to explain."

Steve wrapped an arm around him, pulling Bucky against the heat of his broad chest. He rested his chin against the top of his head and when the hell did Steve get so damn comforting? "So let's do something else. Watch television or..."

Bucky glanced at his lap where he couldn't ignore how hard he was under the towel. More than that, he didn't want all this sympathy any more than he wanted to let Department X take this away too. 

"No, just..." Turning in Steve's hold, he kissed the hollow of Steve's throat and all the way up under his jaw, his good hand resting on Steve's thigh. He still couldn't believe they were doing this. "Just..." He didn't know how to say it.

Steve pulled back enough to look at him. "Come on, Buck. I've learned that in the modern world you're not supposed to be ashamed to tell your partner what you need. I think it's a sign some things really have gotten better." He rubbed a hand down Bucky's arm where he hadn't let go of him, saying softly, "I want to help."

And Steve hated it when no one let him help, but the words still didn't want to come out. Bucky was supposed to be the one taking care of him here, though he didn't know why he thought he had a right to any pride or dignity left and he had already said he wasn't the same person as that cocky idiot who used to daydream about doing things to Steve that would make Steve look at him like he was magic and show him he was perfect ninety pounds or not at the same time. He tried to meet Steve's eyes.

"Could you just be... you know..."

Steve brushed his cheek with the back of his hand and watched his reaction. "Gentle?"

Swallowing what Bucky realized was more a fear of letting the wounds show than embarrassment, Bucky nodded. Steve went back to kissing him, no demand in it this time, just him suddenly becoming fascinated with Bucky's mouth. Bucky brought a hand to the back of Steve's head, arching his head back, and guiding Steve's mouth down to his neck. Steve slid to his knees in front of him so he could kiss lower along the curve of his shoulder and down the front of his chest. Bucky closed his eyes. If this was some implanted hallucination it was a good one.

Warm fingers slipped into the fold of the towel at Bucky's waist. Bucky's eyes flew open, watching Steve watch him, afraid of going too far as he slowly unwrapped it. Bucky's chest wanted to seize up again, feeling exposed, naked in front of him, but Bucky didn't stop him. He forced himself to focus and see Steve, not some HYDRA guard leveling perverted threats about what he would get if he didn't watch his mouth or a bunch of Red Room lackeys holding him down, blank and confused, stripping off his clothes so they could throw him back in cryo like a tool you put away until you needed it again. 

Eyes still on him, Steve shyly and as gently as he possibly could curled a hand around Bucky's cock. He swiped his thumb across the wetness at the tip and rubbed it between his fingers, getting them just slick enough that they glided easily over the length of him. His strokes were almost painfully slow, coaxing him to stop thinking of anything else but how good they felt.

"This better than a lonely cold shower?" Steve looked hopeful, but Bucky knew he could feel him getting harder by the minute. 

His throat had gone so dry he had to swallow twice to answer. It wasn't just how good Steve's touch felt, it was the way he was watching him. "Can't compare until you're done."

Steve squeezed and Bucky moaned. Steve slid closer between his open thighs, his eyes on Bucky's swollen cock now. 

"Want me to?"

Stupid with the lazy pressure of Steve's fingers and the warmth of his palm cradling his cock from underneath, Bucky almost asked _Want you to what?_ But Steve bent his head, opened his lips, and Bucky's body arched with anticipation.

Steve looked up at the last minute, cheeks pink with embarrassment.

"You'll have to show me." 

Bucky ran a hand through Steve's soft gold hair. Compared to him, he was still so innocent in how easy it was for him to give everything he had, to him, the fight... Bucky couldn't lie to himself; he'd add to the body count at his feet without a thought to keep him that way. "Kinda hard to do it wrong," Bucky assured him. 

Steve's wet lips closed over the head of his cock and Bucky's eyes slammed shut. It had been a long time and the heat, the feeling of having such a vulnerable part of him enveloped, was... He clenched his teeth, biting off a low sound, clenched the covers with his metal hand braced behind him. 

Forcing his grip to relax, to let himself remember what pleasure was and that he didn't have to mentally retreat from this, Bucky took Steve's head in both hands. He thrust his hips forward and gently pulled Steve down on him, groaning at how good it felt sheathed in the wetness of his mouth. He pulled back, nearly shaking when Steve's mouth slid up to the sensitive tip again and then he was rocking his hips and tugging Steve's hair, showing him the rhythm of it up and down the length of him. 

The part of Bucky's brain still working wondered whether Steve had ever had this done to him since he'd been unfrozen. He got harder thinking about showing him the things all those girls who didn't give a damn about being proper had shown him—the swirl of a tongue around the head of his cock, lapping the wetness at the slit, around his balls, the tease of a finger where guys who weren't homo weren't supposed to like it, the way he wanted Steve to look at him in that perfect, glowing moment after he came. 

Steve caught on quick though and took control. He rested an elbow on the bed and wrapped his other hand around the base of Bucky's cock, closing his eyes, his cheeks hollowing out as his hand and his mouth worked together at a pace not quite as slow as the one Bucky had started, but still careful. It didn't take long before Bucky was clawing the covers again, throwing his head back, and god he couldn't wait to come. 

The second he felt his release ready to explode through him, he tried to push Steve off while he still had control over himself. Steve grabbed his wrist and pinned it against the mattress, taking him deeper and stroking the length of him from underneath with the flat of his tongue, pressing him against the roof his mouth. Anyone who heard the sounds Bucky made then would have thought Steve was hurting him, but Steve just seemed so hungry to feel him let go, so determined. Between that, and Steve taking him past the fear of having one hand pinned by someone stronger, Bucky couldn't hold back. He thrust one more time into Steve's mouth and then he really was losing it, pleasure crashing through him in shudders and spasms he had no control over. That might have terrified him if he didn't want to clutch so hard to the freedom of it, and next he knew he was gripping Steve's hair with his metal hand, holding him still and choking out "Steve, fuck... Don't move..." keeping him there until it was over.

Bucky let him go when it all subsided. Steve wiped his mouth, looking about as overwhelmed as when he had tried moonshine for the first time. 

"Spit it out."

Steve shook his head and got up from the floor. "It's not that bad. I'm fine." Lowering his eyes, he added, "I liked doing that to you." 

Hoping he meant it, Bucky stretched out naked on the bed, lightheaded in the afterglow. Steve got one knee on the mattress and crawled on top of him. His shirt ended up on the floor and Bucky pushed his boxers off, wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to his. He ran his other hand down Steve's smooth chest, teasing a nipple with the pad of his thumb and rolling it between his fingers until Steve arched and whimpered against him. Bucky thought about putting his tongue there, but Steve slid an arm under him and rolled Bucky on top of him. He rocked his hips up, sliding the lengths of their cocks and even their balls together, and who knew that could feel so good and intimate and satisfying.

Steve's hands took their time wandering down his back, settling on his ass and kneading the muscle while Steve kissed him. His thumb slipped in the crack, idly, as though Steve wasn't really aware of it, rubbing gently against his hole. 

Bucky's breathing quickened and he rocked harder into Steve underneath him, biting the sensitive skin behind his ear. "You wanna fuck me?" he whispered

Steve turned his head so he could look at him. "I'd prefer 'make love', but there's a lot of things I'd like to do with you. Things I'd like to test out."

Bucky hadn't expected a serious 'yes'. He rolled off Steve onto his back. He wanted to be game for whatever Steve wanted, but the thought of anyone—even Steve—doing anything to his body when he couldn't trust beforehand how it would feel or what it would do him... 

Anxiety crawled through Bucky all over again, like cold fingers inside his stomach and his veins. He wanted the old him back that would have been game to try anything. He wanted Steve to take him past the fear again.

Steve laid a hand on his chest. "I shouldn't have put it-"

Bucky didn't let him finish. He didn't want Steve to feel guilty about failing to dance around his words. Steve deserved someone who wasn't nearly this damaged, someone who still had something left to give back. 

"Don't, Steve. Just tie me up."

Steve pushed himself to his knees. "What?"

"Come on. Everyone else has when they had things to 'test out'. You said you wanted to help." 

Steve looked ready to refuse outright, upset that Bucky thought he could get any pleasure out of that, but he changed his mind or maybe understood. He climbed off the bed. glanced around, and came back with a couple of red, white, and blue flag motiffed silk suit ties of all things. Why he had two and which SHIELD PR idiot had made Steve wear them, Bucky would have to find out later. They weren't the Red Room's or SHIELD's heavy restraints, but Bucky let Steve secure one wrist to the headbead and then the other. He tied the knots tight. Bucky couldn't even twist his right wrist. His stomach went queasy, but he reminded himself that with the strength in his metal arm, he could tear free if he wanted to. Maybe he needed something he couldn't break out of, to make it authentic. He shoved the thought down before he went too cold inside to be aroused anymore.

Steve sat back on his heels. It bothered him seeing him like this. That got Bucky to gather his courage, focusing on Steve above him.

"Now tell me what you wanna do with me. They always liked to talk."

Face softening, Steve crawled closer between Bucky's thighs. He forced a thin smile. "You want a bad German accent? Maybe a Russian one?"

The breath froze in Bucky's chest like his body wanted to be angry Steve would joke about those things, but he heard himself laugh and saw the relief in Steve's face. His arms slipped around Bucky's thighs, rubbing as he went on, and his big warm hands kept him focussed in the here and now. 

"But I was thinking this could be the fun kind of experiment, Buck. Maybe I don't have any hands-on experience at this particular thing, but modern technology makes it easy to educate yourself in some eye-opening ways and I _think_ I have an idea of what I'm doing. And yeah," Steve was blushing again, "I want to... be with you in that way. I've been feeling awful about it and that's why I couldn't look you in the eye, but now all I want is to make you feel better." Steve's fingers trailed in the crease of Bucky's thigh, the back of his hand brushing his balls. "So how about it? Gonna cooperate with some torture you might actually enjoy?"

The mischievous yet caring way Steve was looking at him, like he wanted to make it all better, had to be a dream. Maybe he was still strapped to Zola's table and had hallucinated the past seventy years.

"I don't know. Is it gonna hurt?"

Steve smiled. "God, I hope not. I took the time to make sure I had the right tools." 

Leaning over, he pulled a bottle of 'personal lubricant' from the nightstand drawer and held it up. Bucky rolled his eyes. He had probably bought the stuff to practice on himself because he didn't realize learning about sex from the internet rather than the old-fashioned way was cheating.

"I've seen scarier." The joke was weak. Bucky's eyes went to Steve's hard cock though and he wished his hands were free so he could take some of that lubricant stuff and slick him up nice and good with it just to watch Steve's face while he touched him. 

Steve's eyes went soft again and he had to swallow before he could go on. "Yeah, but..." He got an idea and unfastened Bucky's wrists, turning him facedown onto his stomach and retying the knots just as tight as before. He grabbed a pillow at the last minute, shoving it under Bucky's hips, whether it was for him or the mess Bucky didn't know. He was too busy shifting as best as his bonds would let him so he could see Steve over his shoulder. He didn't trust himself not to panic at the feeling of helplessness if he couldn't. Department X used to know how to de-power the arm... 

"What? You got an evil plan you need to tell me about first? They always have one of those."

Steve climbed onto his back, all heat where he straddled him. "No plan..." He leaned close and kissed the back of Bucky's neck, whispering, "Not unless you count making you come."

Bucky shivered, pretty sure Captain America wasn't supposed to talk like that.

"But the thing is..." Steve's hands started on Bucky's shoulders and rubbed their way in slow circles down his back. "The general consensus is to take it slow, make sure you're nice and ready for it, and let me tell you, Buck," Steve's thumbs dug into the muscle on either side of his spine, "the test subject is awfully tense."

Bucky cried out. He hadn't realized he was so sore from carrying himself around coil up so tight. He had been that way for the past seventy years though, wound up for the kill, wound up for the fight, by SHIELD and their tests and constant questions. Even now, he wanted to tear himself free because he couldn't stand having his back to an empty room although it only had Steve in it. Good luck to Steve if he thought he was going to fix all that in one go.

"The test subject thinks you must be ready to explode over there. Come on."

Steve leaned down again, warm against his back. He kissed the side of Bucky's neck, the top of his spine, rubbed his flushed cheek against Bucky's shoulder blade, and god... Steve dragged a slick finger down to his ass and gently pushed it into him. Bucky jerked, then realized a moment later that it felt good, but Steve had already pulled away.

"I think we've got a ways to go if anything bigger's gonna fit." Steve laid his head on the back of Bucky's shoulder and kept talking, low and doing his best to sound innocent. "The internet says I should use my tongue, get you nice and turned on, get you to relax and open up for me." He gave Bucky's skin an experimental lick "I think I'll try that."

Steve's warm, heavy weight slid down his body. Bucky had half a minute to hope he had showered thoroughly enough before Steve was kissing the small of his back and his hands were on his ass again, thumbs carefully spreading him. 

Bucky wasn't ready for the shock of Steve's tongue licking a path in the cleft there, the wetness, the _sensitivity_. Steve circled his hole, probed the tight muscle and coaxed Bucky to let him inside, melting part of his brain and all of a sudden he was harder than he'd ever been and no wonder the girls squirmed around so much, if the two things felt anything alike. He had nothing but the pillow under him to grind against. He needed Steve's hand on his cock again, but Steve was too busy holding his hips down. Something in Bucky wanted to give up and beg for it anyway, but he hadn't then and couldn't handle the thought now. He settled for clenching his fingers tight into the slats of Steve's headboard and biting off his moans. 

Steve pulled away before Bucky cracked the wood with the strength of his metal hand. He whimpered at the loss, his legs spread and his hole wet and open and tingling like his body was begging for Steve to come fill him, the pounding in his dick driving him crazy. Bracing a hand on the bed, Steve pushed himself to his knees, drizzled a little more lubricant on him, and then the head of his cock was against Bucky's ass and Steve was easing his way inside.

He went slow, inch by inch, throbbing hot and rock hard and so slick and big. Bucky was struck stupid by how much he filled him. The stretch of skin and muscle burned, but it didn't hurt like he thought it would, not once he spread his legs a little more and lifted his hips on instinct to make it easier, as though there was just something innate in him that knew how to make room for Steve. 

Steve rested a hand on his back. Bucky could feel the clench in his fingers and hear his shallow breathing to restrain himself, as if all he wanted at that moment was to pound into him and go crazy, but Steve managed to ask, voice thick, "You all right?" Fingers digging into the wood of the headboard again, Bucky nodded, but Steve didn't take his hand away. "Would you tell me if I was hurting you?"

"Never wanted them to have the satisfaction." 

The words just slipped out in the way the slightest reminder or association triggered memories. Bucky was afraid that would do it and Steve would climb off him, but his hands smoothed over Bucky's hips and he said softly, "Hey, you're with me now."

Then Steve's cock was moving in him. He started out slow, just an easy rocking of his hips, waiting for a better reaction. Bucky didn't realize he'd been holding his breath, but he let it out in a soft sound. He had never been much of a romantic, yet he liked the closeness, the idea of their bodies fitting together, liked _feeling_ Steve. Dumb as it was, he wanted to believe that as long as Steve was there inside him there wouldn't be any room for anybody else's missions or their programming. 

Steve's hips sped up to actual thrusts and then Bucky was liking more than the idea of this. A warm ache started inside him, tingling through his cock but coming from much deeper. It got more and more intense each time Steve pushed into him, the pleasure of it a bright amazing thing Bucky could almost see growing brighter in his mind. Grinding against the pillow wasn't enough anymore. He couldn't move much with Steve's weight and his wrists tied, but he managed to drag himself onto his elbows and get enough leverage to thrust back against him and keep that pleasure building. 

Steve sank onto his elbows with him, panting in his ear and kissing his good shoulder and fitting Bucky's smaller frame against his chest, inside the width of his arms. Bucky couldn't get onto his hands and knees, but he pulled one leg and then the other under him so he was down on his shins and elbows instead, letting Steve get as deep as he wanted, as deep as Bucky wanted, sweat running down the backs of his thighs. He laid his cheek against the sheets facedown on the mattress and Steve got an arm around him from underneath, pulling Bucky flush to his warm chest. Bucky thought about Steve coming inside him, washing away everything HYDRA and the Red Room had done. Then Bucky was coming in choked moans muffled by the sheets and it was so intense he just wanted Steve to hold onto him while he was tied there so no one could take him away from himself while he let go and let his guard down. 

When it was over, Bucky lay like a wrung out rag with Steve's weight hot and damp with sweat against his back. Steve only stayed there long enough to catch his breath. Then he was climbing off him, untying Bucky's wrists and pulling the sticky pillow out from under him so he could toss it aside.

He stretched out next to him, and Bucky rolled onto his side to face him, the fingers of his real hand sore from gripping the headboard so hard. The look on Steve's face was about as dumb and blissed-out as Bucky felt. Steve slid closer, looking at him like it was a miracle Bucky was even there, alive.

"You okay?" He ran a hand down Bucky's arm.

Bucky snorted. "Do I look miserable?" After coming that hard, he was pretty sure he looked like the kind of idiot who would agree to anything about now.

Steve grinned and edged even closer like they were supposed to start telling secrets now, "I mean, is it true? There's really a thing inside a guy that makes doing this feel amazing? Because..." his cheeks went pink again, "that was what I was going for."

Bucky hadn't smiled in a long time, not the way he was smiling at Steve now, and it made his face hurt. "You want a medal? Mission well done? But yeah, it's true."

"How come no one told us about it?"

Steve was kidding, but Bucky stretched an arm around him. For the same reason an entire government program had tried to keep his memories from him for the past seventy years "Most of the world's got an agenda, Steve," Bucky sighed. "Some people just don't want others being who they are."

Steve didn't know what to say to that and Bucky didn't want to think too hard on the kind of wisdom you acquired after decades of being someone else's pawn. He got a hand under Steve's jaw and kissed him. He kept on kissing him like he'd been missing him all those decades they'd been apart and Steve slid heavy on top of him happy to give as good as he got. After a while, kissing wasn't good enough. Bucky was hard again from the press of Steve's body and he wanted Steve back inside him.

He pulled Steve closer between his thighs. "Want you again," Bucky murmured through another kiss. "Want you on top of me like this." He wrapped one leg around Steve's waist. He wanted to see _him_ and not the endless line of handlers and victims that would flash through his mind at any given moment.

" _Now_ you're starting to have good ideas." Steve had the nerve to look smug, but his cock twitched with excitement against Bucky's own. 

He raised himself to his knees between Bucky's legs, applying more lubricant onto himself and even though Bucky was a sticky mess from the last time, Steve bent to kiss him and worked a slick finger into him. Bucky rocked against it, kissing Steve open-mouthed. Steve slipped a second finger in and he was more than ready.

It was better lying on his back. His body just seemed to give way to all of Steve at once. Bucky wrapped his legs around him and Steve took the hint to start moving already, holding himself up on his hands and staring into Bucky's eyes. Steve looked almost helpless, overwhelmed by emotion and physical pleasure at once. He kept control over himself though and he felt amazing. Bucky's nerve endings were still overworked from the last round and every thrust against that place inside felt sharper and more direct spread out for Steve like this, traveling through his whole body this time. He was moaning right off, head thrashing to one side and then the other, just drinking in the sight of Steve and then closing his eyes and loving the way Steve's huge cock dragged slow and deep in and out of him.

It was easy to forget Steve didn't have much experience at this the way he was taking control so careful and patient, but he let Bucky show him what he needed. Bucky dug his fingers into Steve's back when he wanted him to go harder and held his hips when he wanted him to slow down. Every thrust and jolt of pleasure through his body felt like Steve was breaking something down in him—the things they had done that had turned off so much of him and put the cold Bucky hated inside him instead. Bucky pushed at Steve with his knee to roll them over.

Raggedly choking out something that might have been "Oh _god_ yes" Steve flipped them so Bucky was on top of him. Gravity slammed him down on Steve's cock and Steve groaned to slide so deep in him in one motion. Bucky snatched one of those ridiculous star-spangled ties from the bed, looped it around Steve's neck, and began to ride him, squeezing his cock on purpose as he pulled his body up the length of him. Steve liked that. He grabbed Bucky's hips and called out " _Jesus, Buck..._ " His head rolled back and then Steve was just watching him move—the play of muscle across Bucky's stomach, the way his hips rolled, his strong thighs that could keep this up for a good long while. Eyes locked on Steve, Bucky supported himself with his metal hand and wrapped the other around his cock so Steve could watch him stroke himself too, slow the way Steve had touched him and not in any hurry. Steve's lips fell open with a heavy breath and before long he pushed Bucky's hand away with a "hey let me." His grip was warm and sweaty and tight, fingers still coated with the lubricant stuff. Steve's hips thrust off the bed, their movements flowing into each other's the way they had always been in synch, and Bucky didn't care what he looked like half bouncing on Steve's cock with his head thrown back. 

It hit Bucky then in the way that who you were willing to kill was as personal as who you chose to fuck, that maybe between HYDRA and the Red Room he'd been violated to the core of who he was right down to his physiology, but for the first time since being free of them he felt like his body belonged to him again, that it was more than someone else's tool, someone else's weapon. Someone's else's creation. Right then, he didn't love Steve for being the guy who had to stand up no matter how hard he got beat down; he loved him because whether Steve wanted to admit to feeling the same about being Captain America or not, Bucky knew he would understand.

It had never happened to him before, but he came at the same time Steve did in hot spurts and blinding white euphoria exploding through his whole body and Bucky swore his toes were curling. He slumped panting onto Steve's chest so Steve could hold him through it and Bucky could soak up the broken sounds and the little shudders running through him.

Bucky stayed there in a half coherent heap for a long time afterward. Steve didn't do much better, absently running the hand sticky with come through Bucky's hair. When Steve caught his breath enough to speak, he got a big dreamy grin on his face and said drowsily, "I want you to do this to me."

Bucky smiled into his shoulder, a weak twinge of excitement through his softening cock at the idea of repaying all this in kind. "I will," he promised, however Steve wanted it. 

"But not right now." Steve's hand smoothed down his back. "Right now I wanna take care of you."

He sounded so goddamn lovesick Bucky bit his collarbone. "I said no getting sappy." Untangling himself before he dozed off right there, Bucky sat up. "I'm just gonna clean myself up and go to sleep." He bent and kissed Steve's pink mouth. "That's a compliment. I don't sleep anymore."

Steve let him go and when Bucky turned the shower on this time he put it as hot as he could stand, washing come and lube out of the hair on his chest and the backs of his thighs. He was washing the mess out of the hair on his head when he heard footsteps on the tile and Steve shyly pulled back the curtain.

"Getting clingy?" Bucky rinsed out the rest of Steve's shampoo. It smelled like strawberries and mint, a little girly, but clean. 

Steve's gave him an innocent grin that might have fooled a few nuns and most of America, but not Bucky. "I got lonely."

He stepped naked under the water, grabbing the soap and cleaing himself off. Bucky took him by the arms when he was done and pulled Steve's wet body flush to his, leaning up to kiss him and walking backward so he was pressed to the tile. He tipped his head back and Steve's mouth was all over his neck, kissing and licking water and sucking the skin. Before Bucky knew it, the blood was pounding in his cock again and his hips were grinding impatiently into Steve's.

Steve stopped attacking his neck long enough to laugh, his eyes bright, and right then the two of them don't have half a brain between them. "I may not be a scientist, Buck, but I think we've stumbled on one thing the serum did to you."

Bucky snorted. "Kinda wanted to think that part's all me. Or you."

Steve got a dopey look on his face and pressed him tight to the tile. Bucky ducked his head to the hollow of Steve's throat and tried to slide down so he could kiss and lick his way to Steve's cock, but Steve held him up by the arms and—serious about this taking care of him bit—murmured, "Some other time." Steve's mouth crushed his and Bucky would have been happy just kissing and running their hands over each other and letting their dicks rub together, but they didn't call Steve the Star Spangled Man With a Plan for kicks. He got his hands under Bucky's arms and lifted him up, coaxing his legs around Steve's waist like some tiny girl. He grabbed a bottle of hair conditioner, muttering against Bucky's mouth about how it was all silicone anyway, and then Steve's fingers were opening him up again, his mouth back on Bucky's neck, and his cock was inside him a few moments later.

It took some shifting getting the angle right, but between Steve's strength and Bucky bracing himself with one arm around Steve's neck and his metal arm against the tile, they made it work. Steve wasn't gentle this time. Bucky didn't need him to be. He moaned for more when Steve's powerful thrusts drove him upward into the tile and Steve bit off sharp sounds of his own each time Bucky slid back down on him, really fucking him now with the strength the serum gave him. Still keyed-up from the last few times, Bucky's body didn't know what to do with all the stimulation. His thighs shook with the shocks of pleasure and it didn't matter that neither of them had a hand free to work his cock. He was so oversensitive he didn't need it and it would have hurt anyway. 

Bucky came with every nerve ending on fire, shaking so bad he let go of the wall and wrapped both arms around Steve for something to hold onto. His body felt like a tangle of fried and overloaded circuits when it was over, and he wasn't aware he was crying until he tasted salt in the wetness running down his face.

Steve set him down, but Bucky couldn't stand, every muscle quivering and a wave of leaden fatigue washing over him the second he came down from the high. He may have pushed his body to the limits of strength and stamina over the years, but the Winter Soldier didn't have to live weighed down by things like the guilt and nightmares and waking hours constantly on the edge of panic of the past few weeks. The strain of it took its toll now. 

His head fell on Steve's shoulder and he was outright sobbing. It wasn't from the guilt or the horror of it all though. It was—weeks too late—a tidal wave of relief after seventy years in enemy hands Bucky may as well have lived through as himself now the way he remembered it all. The relief of reunion. Of rescue. 

Bucky didn't fight it. Better to be broken than a weapon without a conscience. Compared to that, the guilt and the nightmares were the measure of being saved. 

Steve had him close against his chest, murmuring, "Hey, it's all over. You're safe now." He sniffled and gathered him tighter and Bucky realized he was crying too. "Thought I lost you..."

He was dimly aware of Steve turning him toward the water and grabbing a washcloth and the soap to clean him. Steve dried him off afterward and had to half carry him out of there.

"Let's get you to bed."

He pulled back the blankets and Bucky climbed naked under them. Steve climbed in with him and Bucky rolled onto his chest, letting himself cling as he closed his eyes and tumbled into sleep. 

**

Bucky woke up too comfortable to be alarmed that he didn't immediately recognize his surroundings. He was warm, carefully tucked in blankets all the way to his chin with a soft pillow under his head. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had cared enough to make him comfortable. The Russians just threw him naked in their cold cryo tube and let him wake that way. 

It came back to him that he was in Steve's bed and Bucky stretched under the covers and felt the soreness in his body from last night. and well what else could you expect after letting a super soldier have you every which way? He could still feel Steve inside him and he was sore there too.

Steve was already up and had closed the bedroom door to let him sleep. Bucky smelled bacon, but realized it was the sound of Steve's voice that woke him.

He was talking to someone, angry but trying to be quiet though the clock beside the bed read 10:57 a.m.—hours past when Bucky normaly woke, if he slept at all. He slipped out of bed and pulled on the clothes from yesterday Steve had left folded for him on the dresser. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror in the process. Bruises ran dark down one side of his neck. They ached when Bucky rubbed them and he smiled, but at the moment he was more interested in listening. It was just a habit by now.

"Do you enjoy picking on fragile people?" Steve had to be on the telephone because Bucky didn't hear anyone else in the house. "That's not-" The handle of a metal utensil banged against the side of a pain. "I'm not telling you that. That's not how you help. I don't know..." A plate slammed against the counter. "How about showing some compassion for once instead of trying to throw a person who's been through hell at me like a plaything?"

He was yelling at Stark. Bucky came out of the bedroom and found Steve scrambling eggs in front of the stove, the cordless telephone on his shoulder. Steve turned the instant he heard him, taken aback by the stiff way Bucky walked down the hall and the dark marks on his neck. He didn't look proud like most people would.

"I'm hanging up now," Steve told Stark and set the telephone down. He took the eggs off the burner and turned the stove off and was dumb enough to look ashamed. 

"I did that to you?"

Bucky touched the marks where Steve had kissed and sucked the skin while he'd fucked him so good and shrugged. "It's a reminder something good happened to me for once."

Steve didn't look any less bothered. "I think you've been hurt enough. That was the point."

Bucky laughed. He forgot Steve was still new at this stuff and didn't know that some people enjoyed being marked, that it made them feel wanted in spite of being a complete mess. "This is the kind of hurt I like, Steve. Quit worrying."

Letting it go for now, Steve motioned toward the table. "Well sit down." He poured coffee and served Bucky a plate of eggs, bacon, and pancakes gleaming with melted butter.

For a moment, Bucky stared like Steve had served him a plate of diamonds or something. He honestly couldn't remember seeing so much food come out of a person's kitchen and definitely not enough for seconds and thirds. 

"What's all this?" 

Growing up in an orphanage during the Depression, food was tightly rationed, and after that he and Steve never had money for much. Army rations seemed like feasts because they got more than one a day and the Winter Soldier was a weapon and only got what was necessary.

Steve served himself and grinned. "I guess I worked up an appetite after last night, and I thought we could try getting hot food in you this time." Bucky lowered his eyes, remembering how worried Steve had looked for him that day in the safehouse. But it didn't matter whether food was cold or hot when you couldn't keep any of it down anyway. "I was going to wake you." Steve poured some fancy creamer into his coffee. "I was afraid if you slept any longer you'd be awake all night tonight."

He'd been awake all night most nights since getting his memory back. Except for last night, and Bucky winked at Steve. "You mean you're not gonna help me with that?"

Steve stopped himself just short of breaking into a smile. "Actually, there's something I need to say."

Something in Bucky plummeted and with it went his enthusiasm for his food. "The good ones always used to say it was a mistake afterward..." He tried to say it lightly, but there were plently of reasons why sleeping with him would be a big mistake for Steve. He had being Captain America to think of.

It took Steve a moment to realize what Bucky thought he meant. His face softened. "Come on, Buck, not that. I think I should apologize."

"For what?" It wasn't like Steve had taken advantage of him. Bucky had had as much a part in last night as Steve had. 

Steve took a deep breath. "The message Stark sent you. I uh... it was my fault. He got me so mad I told him about that night I kissed you back in London during the war. I shouldn't have—that was between you and me—and I'm sorry. He had no right to treat you like that."

He said it so stiffly, like he'd really committed some horrible wrong. As if he was capable of it. Bucky shrugged and picked up his fork again. 

"You don't have to be sorry for that, but I can't promise not to punch Stark if he doesn't watch it."

They had worked together over the phone a few weeks ago, testing the distance over which Bucky could control his arm remotely. The guy was loud and obnoxious and Bucky couldn't see himself ever trusting him. Stark was a mastermind who made weapons and Bucky had been the weapon in the hands of too many masterminds.

"Don't. I'm pretty sure no one would blame you, but I'd rather not risk SHIELD deciding you're unstable."

He probably was unstable, yet Bucky took Steve's point. "Fair enough, but while we're apologizing for stuff, I'm sorry I almost shot you and for kicking you in the face when I was bad."

Steve laughed, because after everything that was a dumb thing to apologize for and Bucky could't help but crack a smile.

His phone rang where he had left it on the coffee table last night.

"It's probably Natalia wondering where I am. I don't think she trusts me by myself yet."

Something must have shown in his face as Bucky glanced toward his phone to see whether her picture came up. Steve's smile faded and he asked quietly, "Do you still have feelings for her?"

Bucky looked down at his food, he didn't have to think about it, but he wasn't sure the answer would make sense to Steve. Strictly speaking, Bucky hadn't even been there at the time. 

"Do you know what it's like to look back and see how far away the people who ruined your life took you from yourself and remember there was one person who still managed to bring out something good in you? Wouldn't you want to hold onto them? It's like... if something turned me back into what I've been then at least there'd be _something_ human in me with her there."

Steve sat quiet, as though debating whether saying what he thought was worth risking a fight. He took a sip of coffee and decided to anyway.

"You can't love someone because of an irrational fear, Bucky," he said gently. "It's not fair to them. And besides, you don't have to worry about turning into that person again. That wasn't you."

It was now. That's what people didn't understand. The way the Cube brought him back, it hadn't replaced the Winter Soldier with the real him the way Steve probably wanted; It may as well have erased his amnesia from the moment of the fall, the way Bucky remembered everything as though he had lived through it as himself the whole time. That meant every skill and instinct and thought and habit that came with it. 

"If something happened to you I would turn into that person. No one would have to brainwash me first. But it's not just because of that. Natalia doesn't have to care about me, but she does. I look at her and I think maybe I can get past what they did to me if she can. I think me and her could be happy together. But..." Bucky met Steve's eyes. "There's you—if that's what you're asking." 

If he was lost, he wouldn't be for long with Steve around. Bucky knew twice over now that Steve wouldn't give up on him. 

But it was what Steve was asking, and now that he had been reassured he got the courage to press on. "Is this something you want, you and me? I know you're still figuring things out, but I think we need to have this conversation."

The answer to that was easy, but Bucky spent a moment stirring his eggs around with his fork, an ache in his chest. It felt selfish after all the lives he'd taken, but right then he wished more than ever that he'd survived under different circumstances so he could be grateful to find himself in a world where they could have this conversation. 

"Yeah... " Bucky said quietly. "I just... feel like I don't have much to give you right now."

Steve laid a warm, reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to worry about that. You looked out for me for thirteen years. Patience is the least I owe you. Just keep trying, Bucky. I can wait for the rest." 

Bucky smiled to himself. Steve had a way of making him believe there could be a day when he didn't feel so crippled and weighed down by everything. 

He looked down and realized his plate was empty. He hadn't realized he was so hungry. 

"Here." Steve got up and served him another huge helping of everything. "You need to eat." There was a commanding note in his voice that said if they were going to do this then Bucky was going to eat. Steve watched him shovel in a couple more buttery pancakes then asked, "SHIELD want you today?"

Bucky shook his head. "It's Saturday. How's that for normal? I feel like spending the day trying to put my life back together. Maybe look at cars or open a bank account or something."

That seemed to make Steve happy. "Want some company? We could catch up."

Bucky nodded. He always wanted Steve around, and the last time he had tried going out among people he had ended up sweating and panicking in Natalia's car. 

"Then maybe when you're up to it, you could think about joining the team. I'm sure Clint would be happy to have another marksman, and you're one hell of a hand-to-hand fighter."

Bucky should have known Steve would try for that. He looked so hopeful it wasn't easy to shake his head and tell him, "Not really what I want right now, Steve. Got my own things to do."

"People should know-"

What? That Bucky was a hero? That he wasn't anything like the man who had done all that killing in the shadows for so many years? If Steve wanted some sort of recognition for him he had to accept Bucky didn't care what people thought of him anymore.

"You're what people wanna see America being all about, Steve. The soldier with the gun is the ugly reality we wanna pretend we're not. No one will miss me on the team."

"There's nothing ugly about you, Buck." 

Color crept into Steve's cheeks as soon as he said it and Bucky couldn't help smirking.

"And you've seen it all now, right?"

The color in Steve's face deepened and the conversation fell apart from there.


	5. Chapter 5

SHIELD had assigned Bucky about a dozen doctors, scientists, and psychologists, but his 'rehabilitation' was centered around keeping him useful as an asset and making sure he could be trusted not to have a breakdown in the middle of a mission. When it came to reintegrating into everyday life, he was on his own. 

Reintegrating into civilian life hadn't been easy for Steve either, but not in the same way. The modern world wasn't as alien to Bucky. He had been out of stasis off and on enough to have seen some of its evolution. Yet now that he had seemed to let go of the blame for the Winter Soldier's crimes and had begun to face what had really been done to him, the more Steve saw in Bucky someone scarred by too many years in captivity who had trouble functioning under his own control. 

Being out in public was hard for him. Bucky gritted his teeth and insisted he was fine when Steve asked, but as they walked he kept his shoulder against Steve's as though he needed reassurance someone trustworthy was with him. He held himself rigid, ready to fight at any moment, and his eyes darted everywhere—around corners, down alleys—like he expected whatever was left of the Red Room to jump out at him and try and drag him back.

Bucky couldn't make simple choices either. He got irritable when Steve gave him too many options where they could eat for lunch. It got worse the more Steve asked him what he felt like—Italian, Mexican, Thai? Giving up, Steve glanced down the street and said half-jokingly, "Well have you tried McDonalds?"

It turned out Bucky loved McDonalds. It was simple and American and he claimed there was never a time when a guy didn't feel like plain old burgers and fries. Steve didn't have the heart to tell him yet that even burgers in the modern world had gotten complicated with everyone striving to be gourmet. 

The bank was another story. At first, Steve had a hard time keeping himself from laughing watching Bucky get more and more frustrated trying to convince the elderly woman helping him that he was born in 1922. SHIELD had set him up with a passport and ID and when Steve tried to helpfully inform her she was looking at Bucky Barnes himself she was even less willing to take them seriously and became outright angry.

"Son, you should know it's a crime to impersonate a decorated soldier under the Stolen Valor Act."

Steve was pretty sure that only applied to people actually wearing medals they hadn't earned, but Bucky didn't think that far. He pulled his left hand out of his pocket and showed her the gleaming metal.

"Oh come on. How do you think I got this? You don't know what I've lost fighting for this country and now I can't even be who I say I am?"

The old Bucky could have smiled and charmed the woman into doing what he wanted, but she must have found the steely look in his eyes threatening. She pressed a button at the desk and called for security.

A pair of armed guards stormed over from the other side of the bank. They grabbed Bucky a little too roughly. Steve hadn't gotten that awful scene when he had brought Bucky back to SHIELD out of his mind. The last thing they needed was Bucky lashing out on instinct and one of these men drawing their gun. Neither would stand a chance against him. But Bucky gritted his teeth and held his arms stiff at his sides, forcing himself to keep still.

"Let me go," was all he said in a deadly quiet voice. 

The officers didn't take well to the warning in it. It upset their sense of power—something Steve remembered far too well from all the bullies he had mouthed off to. The guard on Bucky's right poked one of the marks on his neck.

"Why? Looks like you like it when things get rough."

Bucky wasn't by nature violent, but Steve could see him clenching his metal fist in his jacket pocket, ready to punch the guy. The guard on his left had to know that wasn't a normal arm he was holding.

Steve stepped in before this got out of hand. "I don't think that's any of your business."

The guard who had poked Bucky's neck turned to him. "What's the matter? Feeling left out?"

Bucky looked on the verge of tearing free at any moment. Steve dug in his pocket for his Avengers ID card before Bucky's instinct to defend him got the better of him.

"I think we should all calm down here." He showed them the card—which was actually a communication device—identifying him as Captain America with a picture of him in costume without the cowl on. "That's an American hero you're harassing and I would let him go. I think I would know my own best friend and partner." 

The two guards stood there like Steve had slapped them. "Oh shit," was all the one who thought it was so much fun to taunt Bucky could say. "It's fucking Captain America and Bucky Barnes."

They let Bucky go, but said it a little too loudly. Everyone in line turned around. They may have been surprised to see Captain America up close a mere few yards from them, but the shock of his survival had worn off months ago. The sight of Bucky Barnes, just as young and handsome as he had been in the old footage, hit them as another shock entirely. Worse, Steve could see the questions piling up, the conspiracy theories. Had the government been lying? Were there more super soldiers? Why did Bucky have a metal hand?

They pulled out their phones, snapping picture after picture of Captain America and Bucky Barnes together. For a moment, Bucky stood with his eyes wide and startled, wetting his lips nervously. He wasn't used to this kind of attention descending on him out of nowhere. During the war, his propaganda duties hadn't extended beyond posing for a few staged pictures, and the Winter Soldier had been a secret weapon of the shadows not a rallying symbol to the public eye. That was the point. 

People got out of line and closed in on them as one body. Bucky's eyes darted around like he wanted to bolt. 

"Let's go," he said

Steve let him lead the way out the main door, but as he should have expected, they only got a few yards down the street before people came running after them out of the bank with their phones raised. 

"Wait!" They were calling. Other people on the sidewalk stopped to see what the commotion was about. Someone must have asked, because a woman from the bank pointed at the two of them. "It's Captain America and Bucky Barnes. He's alive too."

The number of people chasing them rapidly multiplied after that got repeated a few times. Bucky's forehead shone with sweat and he had gone paler like he was being ambushed and couldn't stomach his instinct to start shooting so he could get away. Steve would bet anything he had a gun on him. He let Steve grab his arm though and they took off half running around a corner. 

It might not have been dignified, two men who had gone up against HYDRA hurrying away from a growing mob, but this modern America had an uncomfortable lack of boundaries even when it came to giving a man anyone could see was on the verge of panicking some space. 

They didn't care about giving Bucky space or what he might have been through. They kept following and taking video and pictures for their Facebooks and their Instagrams. People got out of their cars to gawk and the mass of people got larger and larger. Steve stopped Bucky on the corner, working out something to say that would get them to back off. He knew what Bucky saw when he turned and faced the sea of people He saw the lynch mob the media would whip up if the truth about the Winter Soldier ever came to light.

Bucky's stare was distant though, his blood pounding where Steve had ahold of his wrist, and Steve thought maybe he was seeing something else entirely, something from his past Bucky might never tell him about. 

The crowd got closer to do God knew what with them. A woman almost made a grab for Bucky when a car honked behind them.

"Uh, boys? Hop in?"

It was Stark with his sunglasses on, patting the empty passenger seat of a little red convertible. Steve didn't see how he and Bucky were both supposed fit when the car only seated two people.

"Barnes can sit on your lap," Stark yelled over the noise of traffic and cars honking at people running in the street to get a photo before Steve and Bucky got away. "Pretty sure he'll survive flying through the windshield if we crash."

Steve gritted his teeth. That wasn't a comforting image. And if this was another tasteless attempt to throw Bucky at him... But it was either Stark's convertible or the mob.

He and Bucky got in with the mob and their smartphones pressing in as close as they could get on the curb. It must have made for some video, Captain America with Bucky Barnes in his lap, two muscular guys roughly six feet tall, barely fitting in the passenger seat of Stark's tiny sports car. Stark leaned back with a smile and blew the crowd a kiss. 

"Show's over, folks! Time to take grandpas back to the home... Remember Stark Industries equals clean energy. Tell your friends."

The car started off down the street, but not in any particular hurry and Steve got the feeling Stark was more after a photo-op than offering them an escape. 

He turned a corner lined with more people and said, "You guys ever consider security?"

A little calmer now, Bucky snorted. "You mean this car can't fly either?" 

Stark looked at him as if he wasn't sure Bucky had all his marbles. "Okay, did Barton show you the Jetsons? I thought we worked out that problem of reliving the 80s. He's already decided Cap is He-Man right down to the Skeletor/Red Skull thing—which kind of makes you Princess Adora if you know the story, which," he glanced at the marks on Bucky's neck, "is gross."

Steve had no idea what Tony was talking about. Bucky didn't even try. 

"Your dad promised the future would have flying cars. Guess he never got it to work."

"Wait," Tony seized on that a little too gleefully. "You're telling me good ole dad failed at something? Bring him over to the tower, Rogers, I've gotta hear more. But seriously," Stark made a vague gesture toward the crowd, "Security detail...? Maybe charging for photos...? Money-making opportunities here? You could bring in millions. Hey donate the proceeds to charity if it makes you feel better. Barnes here can start a one-armed veterans fund. Women will go crazy. Though I guess that's not really your thing, is it, Sarge?"

Bucky looked at Stark as though he couldn't decide whether Stark assuming to know things about him was an annoyance or a threat. 

"What makes you think I don't like women?" It was quiet, but offended. "I can tell you the ones I've been with didn't want me for my money."

It was a stab and Tony deserved it for his e-mail yesterday, but all Steve had to say was. "Can we drive faster?"

It wasn't just that Bucky wasn't light—with his metal arm he was heavier than Steve—but having Bucky pressed to every inch of him on his lap like this made it hard to think about anything but the way Bucky's hips had moved back against him and the heat inside him and the way he clenched and fell apart with pleasure when he came. It made Steve too conscious of where he put his hands with someone else there. He settled for not putting them anywhere on Bucky and holding on to the edges of the seat instead.

Stark seemed to find his discomfort amusing. "Why? Something... come up you have to take care of?"

Bucky gave him a look that warned him not to push it just as Steve said, "No. In case you haven't noticed, I look ridiculous."

" _Now_ you're worried about looking ridiculous?" Tony turned to Bucky. "Didn't he dance on stage in a spangly suit as a government bonds salesman? That was a thing that happened, right?"

A shadow came over Bucky's expression and just like that his mood changed. "I wasn't there. I was too busy being a guinea pig in a HYDRA prison." He went quiet as if he regretted saying that out loud, staring into the distance and reliving it all over again in his mind. 

Stark didn't seem to know what to do. In his own way, he had been making an effort to be friendly. "Way to kill the conversation, Barnes... too busy being experimented on by the HYDRA Dr. Mengele... Please tell me you can get drunk." 

"Why couldn't I?"

Steve looked away. They hadn't talked much about how Steve had dealt with Bucky's death and this wasn't the place. He hadn't dealt with it at all, really. He had just turned off a part of himself and buried himself a little deeper inside the costume. 

No one answered the question and Bucky shrugged. "Probably be a bad idea. Who knows what's still in my head."

Tony looked even more at a loss for things to talk about. "Oh-kay... How's therapy going?"

Bucky slowly turned to Steve over his shoulder. Did he think Steve had told Stark about the small army of psychologists SHIELD had forced on him too? Steve might slipped about the kiss in a moment of grief and anger, but he wouldn't do _that._

"It's not a secret I'm going to use against you, Barnes," Stark was annoyed. "SHIELD can't stop psycho-babbling at any of us, but hey how else do you justify the number of idiots on your lengthy payroll? I'd give you my spiel on bloated government, but... poorly educated, working man? Something tells me I'm looking at a lost cause."

Stark's rambling was too much for Bucky to follow when he had evidentally gotten lost in his head again. He seemed to have missed the entire last half of what Stark had said.

"If you have to know, it doesn't help. The people I killed are still dead."

Stark gave up, or maybe saw for himself now just how fragile the man he thought Steve should be treating like a conquest actually was. Maybe he even felt guilty for his e-mail.

"Fine. You want your flying car, Barnes?" He said it like he was offering a kid a toy so it would stop crying. "Would that make it better? Actually, come to think of it, a flying car might come in handy since there's no way I'm making everyone Iron Man suits."

**

They sat down in front of the TV late that night to footage of Bucky climbing in his lap in front of a mob and riding off in Stark's car. Every media outlet was reporting it. One channel aired the surveillance footage from the bank which had Bucky standing still long enough to show side-by-side comparisons of him in the present day with old photographs from the war. They had "experts" affirming it was indeed the same man and the reporters rehashed what they knew about the circumstances of Bucky's death and speculated on how he could have survived. Again, there were the undertone of suspicion and conspiracy that the government had produced more super soldiers and had lied about it to the American people for various disturbing reasons. They brought up something called Roswell and wondered whether the mysterious bodies found there stood as proof of experiments turning Japanese POWs into super soldiers gone wrong. 

Bucky bit his lip at that, holding something in. Irritation, probably, that these reporters wanted these terrible experiments to be real for the sake of something exciting to report when he had been one of them and had to live with the aftermath. Steve found himself wondering how many men from his division Bucky had watched dragged off never to come back before his turn came. He wondered whether Bucky had called any of them friends, but didn't want to ask.

"Do you want me to turn this off?"

Bucky shook his head, but Steve turned the channel anyway to see what the other networks were saying. 

Fury hadn't been pleased about the scene he and Bucky had caused without SHIELD backup or oversight, but SHIELD already had damage control underway. They'd held a press conference earlier that evening and the news replayed their "spokespeople" posing as representatives from the military and the government telling a careful story of how Bucky had been found preserved in an abandoned HYDRA base and had indeed been given a variant of the serum. They assured the American people though that there was only one Captain America, that Erskine's formula had been destroyed, and that America honored all her men and women in uniform past and present and like any one of them "Sergeant Barnes" would be given whatever medical or psychological care he needed. 

Steve quietly thanked Fury for a decent cover-up. Fury had taken a liking to Bucky, whether because he was a fellow soldier or because unlike the rest of them Bucky was quiet, cooperative, and kept his mind on the job Steve didn't know. Either way, Steve wasn't complaining.

Bucky watched the rehash of the press conference with his lips pursed. Steve could still feel the softness of them on his from last night and couldn't stop tracing the wide bow of Bucky's upper lip with his eyes as he had with his charcoal so many times since he thought him lost. Maybe it was all the reliving of Bucky's death the news was doing, but Steve wanted him again with a need his body wouldn't let him ignore. They were alone. There was nothing to stop them.

Bucky didn't seem to notice though. "Now every soldier who comes back missing an arm or a leg is gonna expect bionic body parts because I have one." He picked up the remote. "You seen enough?"

Nodding, Steve let him turn off the TV. He was barely watching anymore anyway. He stole another look at Bucky, embarrassed because while he could lead a mission or a battle against alien monsters in the street, he had no idea how to initiate something intimate out of the blue. 

"It's gonna be a circus isn't it?" Bucky sank against the back of the couch. "Paparazzi everywhere."

Without thinking, Steve reached over and rubbed the back of his neck. "I've been through it. The novelty wears off. You'll be fine." He didn't tell him that the President would likely want to meet with him and publicly present him with additional military honors. He didn't think Bucky was ready for that.

Bucky met his eyes, the warmth in them was so much like the old him it put an ache in Steve's chest, but it was the heat on top of that that stirred Steve's cock all over again, the idea that after last night something so innocent as his hand on the back of Bucky's neck could make Bucky think of sex. Steve's cheeks got hot and the corner of Bucky's mouth quirked up from its natural pout. He laid his head on Steve's shoulder and his mouth was so close Steve just leaned in.

As easy as that, Steve was kissing him. Bucky's metal fingers cupped his jaw and he kissed him back warm and not in any hurry, as though he just wanted to kiss. He let Steve slide his arms around him and ease him down so his head was resting on the arm of the couch with Steve on top of him. He was sweet like this, trusting and pulling Steve closer. He made soft sounds against Steve's mouth and his real hand moved slowly through Steve's hair and down his back before slipping into the back of Steve's sweatpants and fingertips brushing the top of Steve's ass. 

Steve rocked his hips into him and Bucky moved with him as best he could while pinned down, his mouth opening for Steve's tongue to slide wet and hot against his own and his cock hard. Bucky pulled back though while he still had the capacity to think straight, cheeks and lips flushed, and the grey-blue of his eyes melting. He looked so content lying there.

"You know, I was kinda worried..." His voice had a raspy edge to it and Steve was proud his kisses could make Bucky's breath come faster. He knew for a fact Bucky had a lot of kisses to compare them to.

"About what?" Steve leaned up on his elbows.

"That we were only gonna get to do this on special occasions. You went years..."

Steve rolled his eyes. Just because he didn't need to have sex for the sake of scratching an itch didn't mean he wouldn't have a hard time keeping his hands off the right person. But Bucky was smiling and didn't mean it wrong. 

"Considering what both of us have survived I guess we should treat everyday like a special occasion."

Bucky's smile brightened and he pulled Steve back down with his metal hand cradling the back of his head. The constant look of vulnerability he had worn these past few weeks was gone for now and Steve kissed the line of his cheekbone and the sharp angle of his jaw where Bucky was so handsome. He kissed Bucky's neck, careful with the bruises that were fading faster than they should have. Bucky let out low, appreciative sounds and Steve realized he liked lying on top of him like this, putting his body between Bucky and anyone still alive out there responsible for hurting him in a way Steve couldn't have done when he was small. He unbuttoned Bucky's plaid pajama top and took his time kissing his way down Bucky's warm chest with its soft dark hair. He got halfway to the edge of his pants when Bucky cupped a hand under his jaw and pulled him back up.

"You ever gonna let me do any of the work? You're gonna get bored if you feel like you have to take care of me all the time."

Steve could have laughed. That was exactly how he had felt for thirteen years before the serum, but he meant it when he answered, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think I like taking care of you. People keep treating me like I'm ridiculous or too 'wholesome' and 'old-fashioned' to understand how the world works nowadays. I think they'd rather I just go where I'm told. At least you're letting me help— now that you've come around."

Guilt came over Bucky's face that he had treated Steve that way back in the safehouse, but Steve didn't blame him for how he must have felt at the time and that had been more about what Bucky thought he didn't deserve than what he thought of him anyway. The guilt vanished and Bucky looked at him the way he used to when Steve was hurt worse in a fight than he had first realized and Bucky didn't quite know how to make it better but that didn't mean he wouldn't try. 

"Let me up."

Steve pulled them both up and Bucky sank to his knees between Steve's thighs. His hands went to Steve's waist and he leaned up and kissed him. Steve was learning just how much Bucky liked to kiss and he felt like he was really kissing Bucky now—the old Bucky from before his life had gone to hell whom it saddened Steve to think he would never really be with. He was taking control now like he would have then, biting Steve's lower lip and teasing away the sting with the tip of his tongue. Steve liked him like this. He liked the scratch of his stubble and the way Bucky's mouth slid over his jaw and sucked and bit down his neck. Bucky's hands—one cool and smooth, the other warm and calloused—moved over his body, up and down his arms and under his t-shirt. Steve helped him peel it off and threw it aside. Bucky dragged his mouth across his bare chest, tonguing and sucking Steve's nipple until Steve arched into him and shook.

Bucky laughed against Steve's skin in a warm puff of breath and looked up at him. "Like that?"

Steve nodded, pleasure buzzing under his skin from his nipple all the way to his cock. Bucky's hands went to his fly and he bent his head and kissed and sucked a hot path over Steve's taut stomach while he got Steve's jeans and boxers out of the way and took his cock into the warmth of his palm. 

It was the first time Bucky had touched his cock, and if that didn't send enough excitement pounding through Steve's body, Bucky bent and stroked the underside of the sensitive head with his tongue. Steve practically went weak with pleasure. Bucky's tongue felt like wet velvet and didn't stop there. He kissed along the length of him and then his tongue was teasing Steve's balls and Bucky was gently taking them into his mouth while he squeezed Steve's shaft and stroked him.

Steve's head dropped against the back of the coach with a strangled moan. He spread his knees wider, the wet suction of Bucky's lips on his balls and the pressure of his hand on his cock too much at the same time. Blood pounding in his ears and in every part of him receiving Bucky's attention, Steve gripped the edge of the couch and shut his eyes so he couldn't watch or else this would be over too soon. Bucky didn't make it easy not to watch. He pulled away from his balls without the slightest scrape of teeth and pressed the flat of his tongue to the base of Steve's cock, licking in slow strokes all the way up to the aching tip until Steve's toes curled.

Bucky evidently didn't want this to be over too soon though. He took his mouth away and let his hand do the work, lazily sliding up and down Steve's cock while he stretched up to kiss him with the slightly salty taste of Steve's own precome on his tongue.

Bucky's mouth wandered to the tender skin behind Steve's ear and he kissed there and whispered, "Gonna let me suck you?" He rubbed his thumb across the tip of Steve's cock, beading with more wetness he was so aroused. "Gonna come in my mouth so I know you liked it?"

Whatever blood was left in Steve's brain shot to his cock so fast it was a wonder he didn't black out. He couldn't articulate anything more than a weak sound, but that was good enough for Bucky. He closed his lips around the head of Steve's cock and then he was taking all of him into the wetness of his pouty pink mouth, gripping him tight at the base with one hand and bobbing his head up and back to wet every inch. He let go after a few good strokes and let his lips and his tongue do all the work. His hands went to Steve's ass, fingers digging into muscle and urging him to thrust his hips. Steve moved with him, but let Bucky control the pace. Part of him didn't trust himself, it felt so good, but the real problem was that his brain was so overloaded his body didn't remember how to move.

He came in dizzying spasms that felt like he was being launched out of his own body. The release must have been powerful because Bucky wasn't ready and for a moment he looked like he would gag. He swallowed it all down though and slowed his pace, gently sucking and stroking like he wanted to squeeze out every drop and keep Steve shuddering and gasping for as long as possible. He didn't stop until Steve's breathing calmed and his cock went soft. It almost hurt when Bucky pulled off him, wiping a white trail from the corner of his lip.

Steve stretched out on the couch and held out an arm. Bucky climbed on top of him and Steve felt half drunk and stupid in the euphoric afterglow, like he could stare into Bucky's clear blue eyes all night and swear up and down he was the best thing the world had ever made. Maybe he was. He was stronger than anyone Steve knew. He was strong just for getting out of bed in the morning and trying, after everything. 

Tangling a hand in his dark hair, Steve pulled him closer and kissed him, his other hand groping over Bucky's thigh slung across his hip. Bucky was still hard, and Steve asked against his mouth, "What about you? What do you want?" His hand wandered up to move in slow circles over Bucky's ass and he whispered, "You liked when I was inside you. Do you want that?"

Bucky shifted and laid his head on Steve's shoulder. "Yeah..." He hesitated and added almost shyly, if Bucky could be shy, "but not right now... kinda sore still."

Steve looked him over, but if he asked Bucky whether he was sure he was all right he knew wouldn't get very far. "You could do it to me. I want that." 

Smiling, Bucky twisted and kissed Steve's jaw. "Wanna wait."

 _For what?_ Steve wanted to ask, but he had said he would be patient and maybe that meant not pushing.

Bucky took his hand and dragged it toward his cock. "Just touch me. That's all I want right now."

It sounded cold and disinterested, and at first Steve was hurt. But Bucky curled tight against him, tucking his head under Steve's chin, and as Steve pulled his pajama pants out of the way and stroked him he felt Bucky's breathing quicken and his pulse heighten and the sounds he made muffled in Steve's neck. He felt him tense and shudder when he came, panting Steve's name and clenching his fingers into Steve's upper arm, and how relaxed he was by comparison afterward. Steve realized he wasn't being cold; he was trusting him, letting Steve see that being held close like this was what felt good to him.

Bucky fell alseep within a few minutes. He said he hadn't slept much since getting his own mind back and the exhaustion showed. Steve could see it ran much deeper than anything the serum could take the edge off. Bucky barely stirred, much less complained, when Steve picked him up and carried him to bed. He cleaned him off with a washcloth and piled the covers on him so he could get some rest.

**

About an hour later, Steve was bent over naked in the bathroom pulling a clean towel from the bottom of the rack, ready to take a shower and go to bed. He glanced up, startled to see Bucky standing behind him in the mirror. His bare feet hadn't made a sound on the tile and it was both eerie and impressive how easily he could sneak up on him. Bucky was grinning though, a grin that didn't hide how much he'd been enjoying the view.

"Think I changed my mind."

Steve stood up and turned to face him. "I'm here to inspire people," he shrugged, "but you'll have to tell me what about."

Bucky smoothly stepped in, slipped a hand around, and gave Steve's ass a meaningful squeeze. "I'm trying to go back to being me. You said you wanted it and I don't leave people unsatisfied."

Steve went hot all over. If he didn't want it before he did now when Bucky talked like that, but it was a pretty bold boast. Steve hoped he managed at least a little bit of dignity when he pulled the towel against him to cover himself and said, "Well now you have to wait. Then we'll see if you can put your money where your mouth is."

Bucky laid a hand on Steve's chest and pressed a slow kiss to his cheek. "I'll put my mouth wherever you want."

It was hard not to pull him down to the floor right there. It was hard to turn toward the shower and leave him. Steve never thought he would see this side of him again. The old Bucky was all there, right down to the cocky tilt of his head and the suggestive curve of his mouth. But Steve reminded himself that he did want to be clean for this.

He didn't stay in the shower longer than a few minutes. He came out and crawled naked on the bed where Bucky waited for him. Bucky had taken off his pajamas and lay sprawled there, all hard muscle he didn't need the serum to get and gleaming silver metal and something that actually bordered on happiness in his eyes. He had fished the bottle of lubricant from the nightstand and smiled when Steve came close enough to touch.

Bucky's arms slid around him and he tilted his head up to meet Steve's mouth with his own. Steve let him roll them over so Bucky was on top and then Bucky was kissing him deeper, open-mouthed, and a little relentless as if he didn't want to give Steve time to catch his breath or think about anything else. He sucked on Steve's lower lip and took his time licking inside his mouth. His heart beat fast against Steve's chest and his cock hardened against Steve's stomach. Steve slid his heels up, bringing Bucky closer between his thighs, his own cock just as hard. Bucky dragged his mouth lower under his jaw and Steve leaned his head back to give him all the access he wanted. 

He kissed hot down Steve's throat and across his shoulder, biting where it met his neck. Letting out something between a sigh and a moan, Steve closed his eyes and reveled in it. He had a fleeting thought of all those girls of Bucky's he had heard moaning or giggling. It hit him both how curious and jealous he had been, that he didn't have to be anymore because he was in their place now and Bucky was really making love to him.

Bucky kissed his way to Steve's chest, mouthing at the swell of his pecs while he grabbed for the lube, stopping only long enough to pour a decent amount onto his fingers. He shifted to give himself room and ran a hand down Steve's body, squeezing up and down the length of his cock with his slick fingers and moving lower to roll and gently tug Steve's balls in his warm palm. Steve couldn't do anything but make helpless sounds and curve his body up into his touch.

Mouth coming back up to kiss him, Bucky let a finger slip further down to the place behind Steve's balls he didn't know was so sensitive. Bucky slid his tongue in Steve's mouth and slid a finger inside him. Steve moaned. He liked the feeling of being stretched and the way the nerve endings there tingled. Bucky curled his finger toward Steve's balls and stroked. A warm sweet ache throbbed through Steve's cock and he moaned some more and spread his legs wider. 

Bucky let out a sound of his own against his mouth and whispered, "Right there?"

Steve wet his dry lips and tried to nod. Bucky stroked the spot harder. He stroked until Steve was tilting his hips up for more of that building ache. His whole body felt flooded with warmth and Bucky slid another finger into him. The burn of being stretched wider intensified the throbbing in Steve's cock and he couldn't stay still. His hips rocked and his body arched and the pleasure rolling out from the spot Bucky stroked had the muscles in his thighs quivering.

Bucky's mouth wandered back down his body, attacking one nipple and then the other until Steve shook and tangled a hand in his hair. Bucky didn't have a hand free, but he kissed lower and drew Steve's swollen cock in his mouth with his lips and his tongue, lapping at the slit and sucking him like he either wanted to break him or devour him. Steve could barely take it. Between that, the way he throbbed stretched around Bucky's fingers, and the pleasure coming in waves now from inside him, it was like being assaulted on too many fronts at once. Steve raised one leg onto Bucky's shoulder—cold metal under his sweaty calf—to open himself more. It only made everything sharper and he felt like he couldn't open himself enough. He wanted Bucky's cock. He was afraid he could come at any moment and Steve wanted Bucky to hurry up and fill him and wring all the pleasure he could out of that spot inside him before it happened.

"Bucky..." His voice scratched in his dry throat and through his heavy breathing.

Letting Steve's cock slide from his lips, Bucky kissed along Steve's leg propped on his shoulder and slid back up. His hair was a tousled mess and his lips were red and wet when he kissed Steve again.

"You ready, Steve...?" he whispered. "Gonna show me how much you like it?"

Steve had to swallow and wet his dry lips to answer. "Do it."

Bucky just slipped a third finger inside him and pulled back on his knees to watch Steve shamelessly grind and moan. The sheets were damp with his own sweat by now. 

"You squirm like a girl..." Bucky smiled down at him. but his eyes had gone glassy he was so transfixed.

"That a bad thing...?"

Bucky leaned forward and kissed him again. "Nope. I like girls."

Steve turned his mouth away and rubbed his cheek against Bucky's. "Come on. I want to know what you feel like."

Bucky's breath hitched and he gently pulled his fingers from him. Steve whimpered, open but empty and needing the attention back inside. Bucky balanced himself above him on his hands and knees, looking down at Steve into his eyes. He turned suddenly serious.

"I've been wanting this for years..." 

Warm emotion surged through Steve's chest. He didn't know whether the same was true for him, not because he hadn't loved Bucky in an indefinable way since he was twelve, but because Bucky had always given him so much of himself Steve hadn't conceived there existed more to want—until Bucky had kissed him. Steve didn't know whether Bucky could understand that, but he knew what was true and ran a hand through Bucky's hair. 

"I want you right now..."

Steve poured lube onto his own hand and slicked Bucky's cock for him while he kissed him, stroking him and feeling how hard Bucky was, the giddy thrill of anticipation racing through him that in a moment Bucky would be inside him.

His Avengers communication device beeped.

Disappointment broke through Steve like a slow blow to the chest. He held on for a few more kisses even as the mood fell apart between them before forcing himself to push Bucky away. A message popped up that there was an attack downtown of some sort and Steve sighed and sat up.

"I have to take care of this. I can't let people get hurt out there."

Bucky rolled off him to one side and said quietly, "I know."

He looked upset and Steve leaned down for another kiss. "Finish this when I get back?" 

He wanted to say he wished Bucky were going out to fight with him, but given how Bucky felt about looking out for him it would feel like manipulating him into something he'd said he didn't want. The fact was, Bucky had done enough for him. 

"Sure. Just come back in one piece."

Steve saluted, climbed out of bed, and kissed his shoulder. "Get comfortable."

He didn't know how he was supposed to concentrate on the fight restless with arousal and wet with lube and when he could still feel Bucky's fingers inside him and the hot imprint of his mouth all over his body. Steve knew he wasn't going to have any mercy though on whoever was attacking for interrupting this. 

**

Steve didn't get back until four in the morning. Bucky wasn't tucked peacefully under the covers like Steve would rather have been for the past few hours. He was kicking and thrashing in his sleep, tangled in the blankets, struggling to fight but unable to pull himself up. He was yelling too. Most of it was in Russian, but a few English words slipped out. Something about "you can't make me do this anymore. I wouldn't do this..." Steve realized he was groping under the pillow for a gun that wasn't there, either desperate or terrified.

Dropping his duffle bag and the costume in it, Steve ran and crawled to him on the bed. 

"Bucky..." He stopped just short of touching him, afraid of startling him into lashing out. "Bucky, it's me. It's Steve. Wake up."

He was in too deep a sleep to hear. If Bucky thrashed any harder he would hit his head on the nightstand and hurt himself. Reluctantly, Steve got his arms around him and pulled him struggling up against him, careful to restrain Bucky's metal arm so he couldn't knock him out with it in a disoriented panic.

"Bucky..." Steve pressed him closer to his chest, running a hand down his back. His struggles lessened. He was covered in sweat and his heart beat dangerously fast. His ribs had to hurt from breathing so hard. "Bucky, wake up. You're okay now." Steve didn't know what else to do and  
kissed his forehead, dark hair plastered in damp waves to his skin. 

Bucky's lashes fluttered and his eyes opened. They went to Steve's face, wide and startled like some kind of scared animal in the dark.

"It's me," Steve said again. "You're home. You're back in Brooklyn."

He expected Bucky to blink away the nightmare and come back to himself, but his face crumpled and his head dropped onto Steve's chest and whatever horror the dream had put him through gripped him too strong to fight off. Bucky's whole body shook and he chocked through tears he couldn't hold in, "Wasn't even a person to them."

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Steve cradled Bucky's head in one hand, leaned them back against the headboard, and let him cry. Bucky slipped both arms around his waist and clung, pressing himself as tight to Steve as he could as though he wanted to burrow inside him, as though he would feel safe there. 

That was the hardest part about everything that had happened. In a world with Loki and the Chitauri and Howard Stark's son fighting in a flying suit of armor, Steve could accept Bucky as the Winter Soldier. But seeing the one person he used to find so easy to lean on for help and protection this broken down hollowed out real grief in him. Worse, it made Steve feel helpless and he hated that feeling. He knew how to lead a battle and convince others to keep fighting when it was the right thing to do, but he didn't know how to comfort anyone. He'd never been through anything like what Bucky had been through and anything he could say felt empty. 

Bucky's grip relaxed and he pulled away after a few minutes. Steve got him some water and wiped some of the sweat off him with his pajama top he had left lying on the floor. 

"What do you dream about?" he asked quietly. _Which part is the worst?_ was what he meant.

Bucky wiped his nose with a tissue from the nightstand and pushed his hair back from his face. "Same old thing... Part of the real me's in there and I'm telling them I don't want any part of their missions, but they don't care what I want." Bucky drank some more water and let out a slow breath. "I'd ask to borrow your bike to go for a ride, but I don't wanna deal with another mob."

That could be a problem. Steve didn't want to see Bucky shut up in the apartment if he needed air, but it would be a while before the fuss died down. If there was one thing Steve had learned since coming out of the ice it was that being a famous hero here in the city was a lot more invasive than being one away on another continent busy fighting a war.

Bucky settled for sinking against Steve's chest again. Steve inched them under the covers and laid down with him, feeling Bucky's breathing slow and most of the tension leave him. He thought Bucky would fall asleep, but he sat up after a little while, worn out, but sounding more like himself.

"How'd the fight go? You want a foot rub or something?"

Steve wanted to say he couldn't let Bucky do anything for him while he was like this, but maybe he just wanted something to do or in his dumb head was worried about being a burden again. Bucky said he didn't have much to give, but Steve could see he was trying to give everything he had.

"That sounds nice."

Bucky crawled naked to the foot of the bed. People thought just because Steve had the serum he didn't get tired and sore and feel the fight after it was over, but Bucky knew better from long months during the war together. Steve just recovered faster. Bucky's hands felt good, thorough and capable. Steve groaned and closed his eyes and told him about the mad man they had spent the night battling who had planned to vaporize whole blocks of the city with weapons that were worse than HYDRA technology. The guy thought he would start with several crowded nightclubs. Steve had taken him into custody and Natasha was working at that very moment to find out whether he had any connection to the Red Skull. 

Bucky pressed for details, not just about Steve, but Natasha and Clint too. He liked Clint, and Steve thought he saw a flash of sadness in Bucky's face that he had missed out on the action.

Steve went quiet and let himself bask in relief every time Bucky's fingers found a painful spot to soothe. The boots he had to wear with the costume hurt and no matter how SHIELD designed them Steve didn't think he would ever find them comfortable. Yet he hadn't stopped worrying that in the past he hadn't given Bucky back enough and after a little while longer, Steve held out an arm to him.

"Hey come here."

Bucky looked up in the dark and without a word climbed onto Steve's hips. Steve got his hands around his waist and pulled him closer until he straddled Steve high on his chest. He dragged another pillow over, propping his head higher. 

His hands smoothed down Bucky's back, cupping the firm muscle of his ass and tracing his hipbones with his thumbs. Bucky closed his eyes and his lips opened with a sigh and Steve could see that after all those years having no purpose but the violence and the mission how starved he was to be touched. Steve was starved to touch him. It was hard leading the fight time after time. It wore him down knowing there wouldn't be a day when the enemies stopped coming, but having Bucky back in a world where they could actually have something together made Steve feel like someone up there was taking at least a little bit of mercy on him.

He kissed Bucky's stomach and got a soft groan in response. He kissed the hollow of his hip and his thighs—everywhere he could reach but his cock until Bucky was hard for him, his erection brushing hot against Steve's cheek in the dark. Steve still wasn't sure he was doing this right, but he fell on old habits, closing his lips around the head and stroking Bucky with his tongue the way Bucky had shown him earlier. Bucky let out a sharp gasp, the muscles in his thighs tightening. Steve cupped his balls in his palm and Bucky's hips jerked forward, pushing his cock deeper into Steve's mouth the way he would have pushed it inside him for real if they hadn't been interrupted before. He shoved at Bucky's hip with his free hand for him to do it again. It was too late to get back to what they had started before duty called Steve away, but Steve wanted to feel Bucky sliding and thrusting wet between his lips so he could pretend...

Bucky clawed the sheets and pretty soon he was panting and jerking his hips forward and back, holding onto the headboard with one hand for balance and fucking Steve's mouth like he was desperate to exhaust himself. Steve held onto him with an arm around his waist and let him. His free hand wandered down to his own cock and Steve worked himself in time with the rhythm of Bucky's hips, imagining Bucky thrusting like that inside him, imagining what people would think of Captain America lying back and loving it.

**

SHIELD held a briefing at 9 a.m. the next morning to outline for all involved how, where, and when they were to say Bucky had been found. Assistant Director Hill showed staged photos on a large screen of an abandoned underground HYDRA facility and then real footage of Bucky carried unconscious by Steve and rushed into SHIELD as though in dire need of medical attention. The scene lent SHIELD the definite impression of being the good guys Steve wasn't sure it had a right to when they were just as happy as the Red Room had been to use Bucky to train their operatives and carry out their missions even though they knew he was fragile right now. 

Steve sat with Bucky in the back corner of the room. He seemed more comfortable where he could watch everywhere at once. His mood got darker the more elaborate the cover-up got though, detailing how Steve had supposedly discovered that underground base and even drawing a fictitious timeline speculating just when HYDRA might have brought Bucky over from Europe. All Bucky seemed to see was SHIELD letting him get away with murder.

They didn't do it for Bucky though. The fact was, they found it easier to have the Winter Soldier as a cooperative ally than an enemy and as an extension of Captain America, they wouldn't want Bucky Barnes tarnished in the public eye. 

Bucky wet his lips and when he looked too in danger of getting lost in his head Steve glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention, leaned over, pretended to explain something in his ear, and playfully licked the side of his now completely healed neck.

Steve straightened just as Bruce glanced their way. Bucky was too good of a spy to look anything but attentive to the briefing, but his eyes touched Steve's in a way that made the room hotter and brought back all the warm sensations of waking up earlier that morning with Bucky in his arms, his back pressed tight to Steve's chest, and how easily he had rolled to face him and melted when Steve kissed him, as though waking up to something nice was something he wanted to savor. The way they couldn't keep their hands or their mouths off each other now, it was a wonder they had managed it for so many years. Then again, they hadn't really known what they were missing.

The briefing went on to lay out the official story in regards to Bucky and the serum—the truth mainly, that HYDRA had concocted their own version and scientists were continuing to study its effects. Steve took pride in keeping a straight face now the he had seen a few of those "effects" for himself. Bucky pretended to listen, but Steve should have known he was biding his time. He waited for Assistant Director Hill to turn her back to them and casually dropped his arm behind Steve's chair, pinching Steve's ass with the enhanced strength of his metal fingers.

Steve yelped. Everyone turned, including Bucky, who had the nerve to look oh so innocently confused and concerned. The spot where Bucky had pinched him tingled and burned and all Steve could think about was the tingle and burn of Bucky's fingers inside him. His cheeks reddened. It only got worse the longer Natasha's stare lingered in particular.

"Ant in you pants, Cap?" she deadpanned.

Nodding, Steve cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and tried to look like a worthy wearer of the stars and stripes while plotting his payback. 

Assistant Director Hill dedicated the rest of the briefing to reviewing what they knew of Schmidt and what his next move might be in whatever body he might have transferred himself into. It was all speculation and quickly descended into a review for the junior agents of how Schmidt had amassed HYDRA during the war, turned on Hilter, and come to power on his own.

Only half-listening since he had lived through it all, Steve picked up the shield and balanced it between them on Bucky's knee like he'd simply gotten tired of holding it on the floor in front of him. (He had brought it to spend some time throwing it around after the briefing.) Bucky's eyes darted to him suspiciously and, waiting until the right moment, Steve slid a hand behind the shield and squeezed Bucky's cock through his black fatigues. He didn't stop at a quick grab either, but kept it up in a rhythm until he got Bucky half hard. Steve pulled away abruptly, eyes forward and intent on what Hill was saying and doing what he thought was an ace job of keeping the grin off his face.

Bucky's breathing didn't even pick up. He just threw Steve a look to say he didn't believe even Steve would go _that_ far and nonchalantly spread his legs in his chair as though he were merely shifting to get more comfortable. He was daring him. Steve let the presentation drag on. Stark sat absorbed in his phone and a few of the agents in front looked as bored as Steve was. His hand snuck behind the shield again, up Bucky's thigh and back to his dick. Steve stroked until a flush appeared on Bucky's cheeks and then he gave the tip of his cock a good enough squeeze that Bucky let out a heavy breath and began to look decidedly uncomfortable.

Maria picked that moment to turn around.

"Is there a problem, gentlemen?" Her annoyance rang through the room and once again everyone turned to look at them.

Steve glanced at Bucky, flushed and breathing harder, but the set of his mouth said that since Steve was the genius who had started this, he could do the explaining. Drawing Steve's attention to his mouth wasn't helping anything, not when it brought back the image of Bucky kneeling between his thighs last night, lovingly sliding his lips over Steve's cock. Steve's pants felt tighter and suddenly he was the one uncomfortable.

Hoping it wasn't too obvious, Steve put on his best Captain America face and wrapped an arm around Bucky's shoulders. 

"Looks like the HYDRA footage is upsetting him. I'll just take him to get some air."

Steve pulled him up and dragged him out the back door. They burst out laughing the minute they got far enough down the hall. Steve realized he hadn't heard a real laugh from Bucky since the war. It sent a rush of excitement through him and a mad need to kiss him. He hustled them inside a supply closet at the end of the hall and shut the door.

Bucky let him shove him back against it and crush his mouth with his, but it didn't quite stifle Bucky's laughter that his pure as the snow, well-behaved Steve couldn't go a couple hours without touching and tasting him now. Bucky broke the kiss just long enough to say, "You know there's cameras in there."

Steve didn't doubt it. "What are they going to do? Drag us off to the fruitcake farm?"

He ground Bucky's head into the door with a deeper kiss until Bucky got a hand between them and lightly pushed him off.

"Long as they know who started it. I'm trying to take my work seriously. I want it on the record that I'm the responsible one."

It would have been more convincing if Bucky wasn't hard in his pants and half out of breath, but it was true. Bucky always showed up on time for work, looked after Steve like it was his sworn duty, and still had time to go dancing. It was probably why the girls liked him so much. He made for excellent husband material.

When you got him alone he was a different story, of course.

Steve cupped his face in one hand and kissed along the stubbly line of his jaw. "You really wanna go back in there and get a history lesson from someone young enough to be your granddaughter about something you saw on the battlefield with your own eyes?" His hands went to Bucky's belt and he worked to get his pants open. "Or I could take care of this..." Steve dipped a hand in and wrapped it around Bucky's hard cock.

Bucky groaned and Steve knew he had him. SHIELD could think whatever they wanted watching their camera footage. They didn't own either of them.

**

Bucky may have decided to put his life back together, but that didn't make it easy. Steve felt as if he were living with three men. The Bucky he knew would vanish out of nowhere into a man who sometimes struggled not to break down or who could lie there for hours, sometimes curled against Steve needing the comfort of being held, sometimes needing to be left alone, quiet and distant. Steve couldn't sneak up behind him without getting slammed against the wall with a metal hand around his throat, and though he knew Bucky knew he wouldn't hurt him, Bucky had been through so many tortures and punishments and nightmares come to life that Steve was careful to proceed slowly with anything intimate until he frustrated Bucky into demanding what he wanted. Steve liked the rasp in Bucky's voice when he whispered that he needed Steve inside him and the way he lost control when Steve used his tongue to make sure Bucky was ready. He liked when Bucky climbed onto his cock, held his shoulders, and rode him until he was covered in sweat and Steve's chest was sticky with come.

Bucky wanted to visit the graves of the other commandos in Arlington Cemetery. The two of them sat there awhile and Bucky told Steve stories about Dugan and Jones whom he'd been closest to that Steve hadn't heard before. He was quiet for a time after that, and they visited his parents' graves in Brooklyn. Bucky sat there for a long time too and told Steve the Cube had sharpened his memories of them and that his biggest relief was that they would never know what he had been made to do.

Going out in public got easier at least. Bucky had a ball grocery shopping and actually having money to afford more than oatmeal and toast, even if his metal hand got him a lot of stares. Some people seemed flat out unnerved by it, others fascinated that it punched keys on the checkout machine and grabbed small things as well as his real one. Bucky liked the fact that it was now fashionable to wear his hair sticking out every which way and that with text messages and e-mails he didn't have to worry about being alone no matter where he or Steve went. Bucky didn't do so well alone.

He had his mind on his upcoming mission though, training relentlessly by himself and with Natasha in their brutal, deadly dance. Stark fitted him with a lighter, upgraded metal arm and then holed himself up in his workshop until the Stark Expo rolled around the night Bucky was set to leave.

Neither of them missed the sense of history repeating itself.

Tony insisted the whole team come and see what he had been so busy working on and that Steve bring his "his pet assassin" in particular. Steve had the feeling Pepper had gotten after him about his less than sensitive treatment of their situation and that Tony was going out of his way—by his standards—to be nice. Bucky seemed eager enough to get out and have some fun, even though SHIELD had him scheduled to leave at 22:00 sharp right in the middle of the festivities. Steve offered what he hoped was a thorough and memorable goodbye that afternoon and Bucky promised to sleep on the long flight to Eastern Europe.

Steve put on the Captain America costume for the crowds and Bucky a suit of black leather and the dark blue he had worn during the war. He had his left shoulder painted with the same design on Steve's shield and left his face unmasked for now. Steve thought he looked handsome, not in the dapper and dashing way he had in his dress uniform, but in a way that was dangerous and efficient and deadly—a man whose codename put fear in the enemy.

Stark's big surprise was that he had finished "what my father couldn't" and to stand on stage and unveil something "sleeker, sexier, and more energy efficient" than the quinjet in order to show "our HYDRA-whooping sleeping beauties that they sure as hell don't want to go back home to the dark ages."

He presented the crowd with a red and black redesign of Howard Stark's flying car. This one actually worked. Rhodey and Pepper climbed in and gave the crowd a demonstration aginst the backdrop of the clear night sky.

"We're still testing names with focus groups," Tony joked as they landed to screaming and applause. 

The crowd laughed and Bucky watched at Steve's shoulder with a smile on his face. Tony was smiling too and Steve hoped Bucky wasn't too touched by this attempt to dazzle him with a brighter future. He had the feeling Stark's elaborate olive branch had more to do with satisfying his need to show up his dad.

People wanted pictures, of the Avengers, and of Captain America and Bucky. Bucky endured the attention, put his arm around Steve, and smiled good-naturedly enough, but he stiffened and got a pained look on his face every time a vet or a child of a vet came to shake his hand or asked to pose with him, as if he didn't think he deserved anyone's admiration or respect. 

Steve caught the look in his eye though as he stood aside with Pepper and Rhodey and watched the team pose together. He wanted to be a part. Steve only had to hope Natasha or Clint—someone other than him—would talk him into it someday. 

They walked around a while, until Natasha found them and told Bucky it was time to go. SHIELD had a car waiting.

Steve turned to her. "Give me a minute to say goodbye?"

She shrugged. "Don't get too teary-eyed, Cap. I'm bringing him back in one piece."

He believed it. She cared about Bucky, and why shouldn't she? Underneath it all, they were a lot alike, loyal and protective toward the people they loved. But she didn't understand that it wasn't easy to let Bucky go when they had a history of meeting again as different people and the world wounded Bucky a little worse each time. Steve wasn't entirely sure Bucky was ready to get back into the fight so soon. He wasn't sure Bucky shouldn't think about an entirely different line of work for himself and take it easy for the rest of his life, but Fury seemed to think Bucky needed a mission to keep him focussed and Steve was the last person who should have a hard time understanding when there was something you felt you didn't have the right not to do.

Steve looked toward the shadows a little ways from the crowd and reached for Bucky's hand. 

"Do you mind?"

Bucky shook his head, curling the warm calloused fingers of his real hand around Steve's. "I'm not ashamed, but you know you're asking for it."

Steve took a breath. The Stark Expo was a widely-covered event now and the camera crews from every major news outlet were everywhere. He knew he was pushing, with everything else Bucky had to deal with, but he wouldn't ask Bucky to have any part beyond holding his hand. 

"That's kind of the point."

Bucky gave him that old look as if he didn't quite trust Steve had thought through this latest act lacking in a sense of a self-preservation. "You want this splashed all over the place? Half of America's suddenly gonna admire you a whole lot less, Steve. You don't deserve that."

Steve turned to face him and didn't let go of his hand. He wanted Bucky to know this wasn't an impulsive decision.

"What you said got to me, about being afraid something would happen to me if we were together, and about not being a person to the people who controlled you. Since coming out of the ice, I feel like I've been taking the easy way out going where SHIELD tells me because I didn't know what else to do. I thought I lost everything, but someone up there gave you back. I figure maybe it's a sign not to lose faith and to keep on being me. I feel like I have to decide for myself what Captain America stands for, instead of letting other people dictate what they want me to be."

Bucky stood quiet a moment. He didn't argue or ask what Steve thought he was proving by dragging his personal life out into the public eye like he might have. He just let out a breath with real relief in it and said, "I knew you'd understand."

What? That when you got to the heart of it they had been the same thing, someone else's master creation, the strategic weapon that was supposed to tip the balance and make all the difference? He might not have been through what Bucky had, but Steve had a fear of losing himself in the costume, to the people who might just make him a tool if he let them get away with it and who found it inconvenient at times that he was a person. He owed it to Erskine not to let that happen, the way Bucky owed it to himself. 

"We have to go, James," Natasha yelled from the backseat of their SHIELD car that had pulled up to the gate. 

Steve took Bucky's other hand so he was holding both of them. At least Steve was tall enough to look him in the eye this time around. "Be careful?"

Bucky snorted. "I've been doing this for decades without you, Steve. Don't worry." 

He glanced around. People had stopped to watch them, taking pictures and muttering to each other at the shocking sight of Captain America and Bucky Barnes holding hands and looking an awful lot like a pair of queer lovers. Bucky drew a deep breath and gathered something within himself.

"Well if you want this all over the place then I may as well make myself look good, right?"

He stepped closer, laid a hand against the side of Steve's neck and tilted his face for a kiss with a thumb against Steve's jaw. It was a good kiss. Steve felt like they were in the old movies, or in a movie of a better future where two men didn't have to hide away to kiss, even when they were supposed to be symbols of hope for their country. He felt like he'd been given the chance to relive that night back in '43 when Bucky had gone off to war all over again, only in a world where he could do it right instead of burying what he felt under confusion and restraint. Months ago, Stark had asked him what his reward was for all Steve had given in the war. It was in that, and the cop walking by who looked stunned but did nothing but tell the crowd to keep back, and the young girls who tried to rush closer anyway with their camera phones ready, squealing "Oh my god! They're SO cute!" These things wouldn't have existed in a world ruled by Hitler or HYDRA.

"I'll see you in a couple weeks," Bucky promised when he broke the kiss.

He stepped back from him. Had he been wearing the dress uniform like he had the last time they'd been here, he would have tipped his hat to the crowd, but he gave them something close to his old rakish smile and Steve watched him turn away and drive off with Natasha.


	6. Chapter 6

"Coming out" as they called it now barely gave Steve time to miss Bucky the way he deserved while he was gone. Every media outlet wanted a statement or interview. They wanted to know how long this "affair" had been going on and whether he and Bucky had been lovers during the war. In so many words, they were asking how long Captain America had been deceiving the American people. 

Steve told the truth, that it had taken him time to recognize his feelings for what they were, that he had grown up mistakenly believing that if you were queer, you would automatically know, as if you were some other kind of person, the way you knew whether you were a man or a woman. He had learned of course that even that wasn't so simple for everyone.

They asked him how he thought the other Commandos would have felt, and when Steve argued that he didn't see how who he chose to sleep with had any bearing on how he did the job, they insinuated that the nation had a right to know he wasn't the wholesome "all-american" figure they took him for.

It wasn't all being made to feel as if he'd been hiding bodies under his bed for the past seventy years though. Steve got calls wanting him to pose for queer magazines and attend queer-related events. He agreed and suddenly had six months worth of commitments on his calendar. They wanted Bucky in the magazines too, as a "hot, disabled queer veteran icon." Steve wasn't sure Bucky counted as disabled—even if he had no real feeling in his cybernetic arm and saw it more as a weapon than an artificial limb—but he thought Bucky would appreciate the "hot" part. Steve felt inadequate being anyone's "queer icon" having barely just come to terms with that part of himself. Others had struggled with it and suffered for it all their lives. But they called him a war hero even though he had never served on the real battlefields the way Bucky and the other guys had, and just like then, he was all the superhero queer America had so far and so Steve strove to do his best for them.

He finally got enough time to himself two weeks later for a decent work out in the peace and quiet of the gym at Avengers Tower. With the serum, Steve didn't need to work out to keep his body in top condition, but it helped him focus and contrary to what people seemed to believe, he did have to practice with the shield. It sure didn't bounce back to him like a magic boomerang the way the news reels and old stories liked to pretend.

The gym wasn't the best place to throw the shield around, but it was late and it would do. Steve launched the vibranium edge-on at the corners of the high ceilings and had pitched forward to catch it again when the solid weight of another body jumped from out of nowhere and landed heavy on his back. Instinct took over and Steve staggered a step but kept his balance, bent, and flipped his attacker onto the mat. 

A metal hand touched down first and Bucky used its strength to propel himself off Steve's shoulders, flipping himself into the air to land facing him on his feet. Steve should have known it was him—no one else could have snuck up on him like that or gotten past the tower's upgraded security.

Steve couldn't read his face behind the mask, but Bucky's eyes were wild and he was wound up with adrenaline, all Winter Soldier.

"Good thing you're not letting your guard down. An enemy could come at you at any time."

Steve couldn't tell whether Bucky was being sarcastic, but who could blame him for not expecting him to come jumping down from the ceiling. Steve was pretty sure normal partners called when they got back from being out of the country. He smiled though. 

"I never let my guard down."

"Oh yeah?" 

Bucky swung at him. Not expecting a real hit, Steve was slow enough in grabbing Bucky's arm to hold him off that he caught a glancing blow to the jaw. The force of it knocked him back a step. Bucky wasn't impressed.

"Wanna rethink that? I coulda come back brainwashed ready to kill you." 

Steve rubbed the spot where Bucky had hit him. He had forgotten how much that metal fist could hurt. "You would have taken the shot with your rifle while you had the chance."

Bucky wasn't wearing his rifle, but he had a combat knife strapped to his hip. He would have launched that at him, with terrifying accuracy.

Bucky's eyes narrowed. "You think that's the only way I can take you down?"

If Bucky was grinning behind the mask, neither his eyes nor his voice let on. Steve grinned though. "You think you're that good?"

Bucky swung at him again. He was in the mood to spar, all keyed-up from the mission. The blow hit Steve square in the chest and knocked the air out of him. Steve recovered quick though and aimed a blow of his own at Bucky's stomach.

He blocked it with his metal arm held sideways across his body. Grabbing his wrist, Steve spun him so he could pull Bucky against his body, only for Bucky to drive an elbow into his chest and spin several yards away. He was so light on his feet all Steve could think was that Bucky had come a long way from the dance hall, but he didn't let the thought distract him for longer than a heartbeat.

Steve ran at him, grabbing him and slamming Bucky against the wall with his weight. The impact knocked the breath out of Bucky in a _whoof,_ but he still shoved and twisted to get enough space to slip free. Steve managed to bend Bucky's metal arm behind his back and pin his other wrist against the wall. He pinned Bucky's leg with his thigh too and met his eyes above the mask, blue and cold and deadly.

Bucky was breathing a little harder and Steve could feel the pulse pounding in his wrist with the thrill of the fight that lived in him now. Steve smiled.

"Let's see you get out of that one, Buck."

Bucky held his eyes and Steve wished he could read his face because they gave nothing away, not even as Bucky slid the thigh that wasn't pinned between Steve's legs up against his cock. Steve was hard in an instant, excitement tingling up his spine. He may have gone years without sex, but after two weeks he was starved for Bucky's body. He yanked the mask down, diving for Bucky's mouth. Bucky rubbed his thigh more deliberately against Steve's cock and Steve groaned against his lips and kissed him harder, driving the back of Bucky's head into the wall. It was good, everything Steve had been missing, until Bucky tangled a leg around his and knocked Steve off balance.

He danced away, taunting Steve with an opening by turning his back to him. Steve ran at him from behind, throwing him hard facedown to the mat.

Bucky grunted with the force of it, and the friction of his hips twisting to get a leg out from under him only got Steve harder. He inched up Bucky's body to mouth at what little of Bucky's neck his deep blue suit exposed. Bucky closed his eyes and groaned, then slammed a super-strong metal elbow into Steve's ribs.

It forced Steve sideways enough for Bucky to slip out from under him. Steve barely let him get to his feet before he was on him again. He grabbed Bucky's shoulder and spun him to face him, but only for Bucky to shove him hard backward onto one of the padded benches against the wall.

Steve yanked him down on top of him by the front of his jacket, surging up to capture Bucky's mouth with his own. Bucky balanced himself with one knee on the bench between Steve's thighs, metal hand tangled in the top of Steve's hair. He gave back as good as he got, kissing Steve hard, so hard Steve couldn't help grinding his cock against the knee between his legs and groaning.

"Let's get out of here," he pulled back to breath out. "I want you."

Bucky grinned but kept on kissing him. His fingers went to the hem of Steve's t-shirt, pushing it up and baring most of Steve's chest. Bucky slid both hands up smooth heated skin and taut muscle, rolling Steve's nipples between his fingers while he worked his tongue into Steve's mouth.

Steve's whole body pounded, but he pushed Bucky back. "Come on. Someone could come in."

Not too worried about it, Bucky kissed his jaw and bit the side of his neck. "I took care of that."

Steve shivered at the sting of teeth, the reminder that the man on top of him was dangerous, but he refused to let his brain go completely to mush. "We can't do this here. We need-"

Slipping a hand into the pouch at his belt, Bucky pulled out a small packet of lubricant marked for 'individual use'. "I took care of that too." He looked pleased with himself. 

He'd planned this. Bucky had gathered what he needed, tracked Steve here, locked him in, and planned this. Bucky was pulling Steve's sweatpants and underwear off and Steve let him, feeling a little bit at his mercy. He only bothered getting Steve out of one leg. Then he was on his feet, in a hurry to get his own pants open.

He got his hands under Steve's thighs and spread them open wide, letting go only to tear open the lube packet with his teeth. Bucky slicked some on himself and squeezed the rest onto his fingers, pushing one inside Steve and bending down to kiss his neck and chest and attack his nipple with his tongue. 

Steve rolled his head back on the sticky leather of the bench, his hips rocking and his cock aching. Bucky slid a second finger into him, opening him easily. Choking back a moan, Steve wondered what the world would think of Captain America—the nation's wholesome hero—lying on his back with his legs eagerly spread, on the verge of begging one of America's deadliest enemies to hurry up and bury his cock balls-deep inside him.

Bucky watched him, eyes hot, but his mouth curved up in a smirk. "You want it, Steve? Show me you want it..."

Steve closed his eyes, that amazing ache spreading from behind his balls through his cock again. He ground his hips on Bucky's fingers. He wanted it. He'd been waiting...

Bucky took his hand away and then came the slick head of Bucky's cock against him and a few heartbeats later the hardness and heat and slow burn of stretching muscle as he slid inside. If Steve had run from or failed to understand his feelings for him before, he couldn't now, not with Bucky as close as he could get, part of him, and so many things and sensations pounding through him, forcing Steve to open his eyes and _look._ Steve drew his knees toward his chest, cock twitching at the shaking breath Bucky let out when he slid in all the way. Bucky's fingers clenched into the side of the bench in a struggle to restrain himself, his lips parted and his breath coming quick. It had been a long time for him. Steve dug his fingers into Bucky's arms and growled, "Don't hold back..."

He didn't. Bucky sucked in air and then he was thrusting, fast and deep and deliberate against that spot inside, watching Steve's face and moving his hips just right to draw out every moan he could like he wanted to see just how long Steve could stand it before he broke and came. Steve lay there and let him do his worst. He wanted to feel it all—whatever anger or festering emotion Bucky had been holding in all these weeks or all these decades. Steve wanted to share it, because what had happened to him had been his fault. He wanted to feel this even as he slept tonight too, so it wasn't loss he dreamed of, but getting something back. It was ironic they called this a sin when it was the thing that let him keep having faith. 

Bucky thrust harder in time with his own heavy panting. He pulled Steve's legs around his waist and slapped his metal hand onto the bench to better support himself. Sweat shone on Bucky's forehead and the bench under Steve was sticky with it too, the building pleasure dizzying, washing over every nerve ending now.

Steve's hand slipped down to his own cock and it only took a few strokes before what felt like lightning shot up his spine, overloading his brain, and then he was clenching his thighs around Bucky's hips and coming in violent spasms that had his back arching off the bench. 

Bucky didn't stop, biting back a sound at the way Steve's body tightened around him. He kept thrusting until Steve sank back limp and sweaty on the bench, but he was still hard and hadn't come yet, rolling his hips and dragging out the aftershocks of Steve's orgasm. Steve's body buzzed as though he had been electrified, but rather than feeling drained, it left him energized. He swallowed a couple times in his dry throat and smiled up at Bucky panting above him.

"Don't hold back..."

With a bitten-off groan, Bucky pulled out of him. Steve whimpered, sticky and twitching and sore from use in the best possible way where Bucky's cock had been. Bucky was already grabbing him by the shoulder though and turning him over.

Steve got on his hands and knees. A cool metal hand steadied him at the small of his back and for a moment Bucky just teased him rubbing the head of his cock between Steve's cheeks and all Steve could hear was Bucky breathing behind him and his own blood thrumming in anticipation. Then Bucky slid inside him again in one easy thrust and a breath they breathed together.

He held Steve's hips and pumped his cock into him twice as hard and fast as he had before, as though he couldn't get enough of him. The pleasure came more intense in this position, and maybe Bucky didn't have much of the serum left in him, but Steve could feel the power his body had now from all his training. He spread his knees wider to brace himself and take it. Steve could feel Bucky getting close, getting harder inside him. He let go of Steve's hip and grabbed the back of Steve's hair with his metal hand, forcing his head down. His other hand went to Steve's cock, fist moving in time with his hips, letting Steve have some of his ruthlessness. Bucky's grip tightened, hips jerking erratically, and he was coming inside him. 

Steve came with him, barely having the presence of mind left to grab his empty pant leg at the last minute and catch the mess. 

The frenzy of Bucky's movements calmed to an almost lazy rhythm, slowly bringing them down from the high. He kept it up until his cock softened and his ragged breathing returned to normal. Steve's thighs were shaking when Bucky pulled out of him and the exhaustion and bliss and whole-body sensations left Steve half feeling like he had to be dreaming. Bucky rubbed a hand down his back and then he was pulling his pants up. He seemed to have come down from the adrenaline high of the mission and back to himself.

"Come on," he said. "We can do this again at home."

Thank God the gym had a bathroom. They cleaned themselves up and walked out smiling. "How did the mission go?" Steve asked as they made their way down the hall.

"Fine. One less assassin we have to worry about. Me and Natalia had to pretend to be married for a few days."

Steve looked at him, but Bucky was apparently serious. "Yeah? How'd you like that?"

The corner of Bucky's mouth curved up. "I told her she was just gonna have to put up with my boyfriend on the side and she hit me."

Steve laughed. "Looks like you're losing your way with the ladies, Buck." 

He put an arm around him. Bucky shrugged it off, shoving Steve into the wall with his metal arm.

"Don't get clingy."

Laughing, Steve hauled him close and then Bucky was pressing in on him, kissing him into the wall. They got so carried away even Bucky didn't sense Stark coming around the corner.

"Nothing grosser than old people sex," Tony grumbled as he walked by.

Bucky turned. He still wasn't as easy to read as he used to be, but his small smile looked at least halfway friendly. "For a genius, you sure don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Yeah. Don't want to know." Stark shrugged and kept on walking. He lifted his head though and yelled, "JARVIS? Erase the last hour of footage in the gym."

There was a moment of busy silence before the computer responded, "There is no footage, sir."

Bucky smirked to himself. Apparently he had disabled the cameras in the gym. Steve took him by the hand before Tony got too interested in how he had done it.

"Come on. I'll make dinner and tell you all about the photoshoots I'll be doing for queer America."

Bucky didn't bat an eye, but Steve supposed he would believe anything at this point. "Wearing nothing but the shield?" 

Steve smiled. "We'll see."

"Do I get to supervise?"

"Maybe," Steve shrugged as he led them out the doors toward home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, so, as I’ve said like a dozen times I got really sick twice doing this stupid thing and I guess my thing is that people talk about Steve and Bucky being good for each other, but I felt like I wanted to talk about how Captain America and Winter Soldier relate and how that makes Steve and Bucky understand each other as the people they are now, in a way that has nothing to do with the past, because I find that interesting.
> 
> I also wanted to write a story where Bucky realized he was a victim, where he let that sink in. In the comics this doesn’t really seem to stick with him.  
> This idea that he needs to redeem himself or go around making amends is really gross to me.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
